Night By David Sedaris Summary

The author, David Sedaris, uses setting to set the mood of the story. In the second paragraph, he gave you an image of being alone in the dark country. He uses this to foreshadow how he believes the Tomkey’s live, in the dark, alone. “It was speculated that just as a blind man develops a keener sense of hearing, the family must somehow compensate for their loss.” The author uses this simile excellently to state how he feels about loss. He thinks when you feel loss you must make up for it in some other way. What he does not realize is that he feels a loss himself. His loss is not having friends. Instead of making friends with the Tomkey’s, he would rather observe them like a television show. This is how he compensates for his loss. We can learn
from this, as writers, because he uses the technique of making observations about others, which draws our attention in, to making observations about himself, which makes us think more in depth about ourselves as the audience.