Analysis of 'Night, mother'

Everyone has a different perception of life. Perhaps the norm says we always choose life; social mores and traditions in western culture suggest that there really are no choices in this regard. We all have our obstacles that we face during the time we spend on this earth and are also faced with live changing decisions. In ‘night, Mother, it’s indicated Jessie Cates had struggled throughout her life with depression, seizures, memory loss, abandonment, a forced marriage and a controlling mother. She knew no other world, enslaved to these conditions of her existence and base of familiarity. Her concept of time was blurred.

Jessie is portrayed as a light-skinned and somewhat physically unstable woman in her later thirties or early forties (Norman 1528). Jessie Cates struggles with family problems and has just now seen improvement in her epilepsy in the last year. Beginning to regain some parts of her memory she makes a decision that will change her life forever. ’night, Mother” is a play about a seemingly futile life…a life fraught with turmoil, tragedy and a failed existence. In this sense, death breaths life because it symbolizes the freeing of oneself from the bonds of this miserable and almost pointless subsistence. It probes the concept of death to understand the term “quality of life.” This is what ‘night, Mother is about.

The turning point or perhaps redemption in her life was when Jessie was given medication for her condition which relieved her of crippling seizures. “It’s not the fits! You said it yourself, the medication takes care of the fits” (Norman 1553). Dramatic results were achieved and Jessie did not have seizures anymore. “Jessie mentions how good she is feeling and how her awful side effects of her ep...

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...nt but we also realize that what had been here before, will return again…and perhaps with an even greater vengeance. Thus, to capture the essence of life in the best possible circumstances, Jessie decided to stop the onward ticking of time, and the possibility she would return to her past, by electing to commit suicide. This act, in her mind, preserved that moment in time when all was well.

In the end, life for Jessie had ceased to be. Her life is gone; the turmoil finally removed…a sense of relief perhaps, maybe a permanent state of rest. By committing suicide she sealed her optimum destiny and achieved closure to her life. She reached nirvana.

Work Cited

Norman, Marsha. ‘night, Mother. Making Literature matter, An Anthology for Readers

and Writers. 4th ed. Ed. John Schlib and John Clifford. Bedford. Boston: Bedford, 2009. 1526-1561. Print.