Night Women 3/11/15

This story was interesting to read, there were many beautiful scenes filled with imagery. One of my favorite passages is where she describes herself as being in between a day woman and a night woman. Colors are used  to describe her coloring, her eyes and her hair is described in an unusual way. She describes it as matted tresses, yet she is making her money by selling her body. It made me question why she would let her hair get to that condition. The further I read into the story I discovered that maybe the condition of her hair wasn't her choice.

She describes her home as being a one room shack of sorts, there is a hole in the ceiling over her bed, she and her son must share a room with only thin fabric separating them. It then occurred to us as a class this is typical setting for Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian writer.

The woman in the story describes her "customers" as her suitors, typically we think of suitors as men that parents in rich families set their daughters up with to keep the money in the family. There is a sense of pride that she carries knowing she will have the days to herself, she doesn't have to spend the day working in the unbearable heat, doing the same job everyday. She hates herself for doing this job, yet is thankful she doesn't have to do tedious work like the other women in the Ville Rose. There was great discussion as to what she meant by "ghost women" in my opinion she was referring to all the women that work in the shops, the factories etc. All of the jobs that are dehumanizing but the only way of life. She says that they will always undo their days work during the night so that they do not need to resort to prostitution for a living. They won't need to live with several men's scents that are not only left on her bed but their wives beds. They won't have to live with the shame that comes from the way she makes a living, as long as they always have work to do.

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about her relationship with her son, it seems very intimate as the story goes on. She does her work while he is in the room, she looks at him in a very loving way yet there seems to be almost a lingering sexual tension as he is growing older and will soon discover what she does. He reminds her of his father, a suitor that left long ago, when she talks about him she seems nostalgic in a sense, like she's willing him to come back. Her descriptions of his sleeping, or his movements are a little sexual for my taste. She describes his tossing and turning as "He squirms and groans as though he's already discovered that there is pleasure in touching himself" (Dandicat p. 84). It is entirely possible that he has, young children often discover this early. I found it to be a little strange that, self pleasure is what she chose to relate it to.