Night Watch: A Novel

Eliza is the daughter of a plantation owner in Virginia, but Dearbhla effectively adopted Eliza after Eliza’s mother’s death in childbirth. Though Eliza grew up in the upper class, she spent a lot of her time with Dearbhla, an Irish indentured servant. Eliza’s romance with Ephraim begins when she is a teenager, and it leads to Ephraim’s branding. After the overseer attempts to capture Leena’s son, Eliza kills the overseer, forcing her to flee the plantation. She develops a keen skill for survivalism with Ephraim and Dearbhla on the way to West Virginia, and she continues developing her skills while maintaining her home in the mountains.

Eliza has a miscarriage on the way to West Virginia, after which she gives birth to ConaLee, her and Ephraim’s only child. Following the trauma of Papa’s invasion of Eliza’s mountain home, Eliza struggles with feelings of shame and doubts her ability to protect herself and ConaLee. After Papa’s return, Eliza shuts down completely, using withdrawal as a defense mechanism against the trauma she faces from Papa. It is only in the comparative safety and freedom of the asylum that Eliza returns to her true self, integrating her upper-class upbringing with her rugged survivalism.

Although Eliza is vulnerable while dealing with her trauma, she is strong and independent during the parts of her life that are only briefly covered in the novel. Her journey to West Virginia and the time she spent taking care of her home and ConaLee without Ephraim both show her capacity for self-reliance and defense. However, Eliza is totally withdrawn for most of the novel, showing how the trauma she experienced with Papa broke down her strength and forced her to enter an almost catatonic state. At the asylum, ConaLee notes how the Eliza who emerges from this catatonic state is not the same Eliza from their mountain home. The new Eliza is a combination of the fierce, protective Eliza whom ConaLee remembers from her childhood and the calm, social Eliza who initially fell in love with Ephraim.

Ephraim, known as John O’Shea or the Sharpshooter at different points in the novel, is Eliza’s husband and ConaLee’s father. He is the son of Eliza’s grandfather and an unnamed enslaved woman, whom Dearbhla adopted after his mother’s death.

Though Ephraim’s ethnicity is unknown, he adopts the same social status as Dearbhla, the daughter of Irish indentured servants. Due to his class status, Eliza’s father is upset by his daughter’s interest in Ephraim, having Ephraim branded and whipped. Ephraim and Eliza become fugitives after killing an overseer, which creates Ephraim’s desire to earn his freedom by fighting in the war. As the Sharpshooter, Ephraim implies that his desire to fight for the Union is driven by a desire for his own freedom and the freedom of enslaved people in the South, as he has experienced some aspects of the discrimination and violence inflicted on Black enslaved people by their white oppressors.

Ephraim is a challenging character in the text, as his primary conflict centers on his struggle to form a concrete identity. He experiences safety and comfort in nature, and he often identifies primarily with smells and sounds, such as the noise of the forest and the smell of Eliza’s hair. As John O’Shea, Ephraim struggles to understand himself, knowing that the gentle woodsman part of himself conflicts with the angry and violent soldier he became as Ephraim Connolly in the Civil War. At the end of his life, his locked heart is finally opened by the realization that he, Eliza, and ConaLee are reunited, but Papa cuts this new life short through a final act of violence.

After his death, Ephraim’s account allows ConaLee to start a new life, much as Ephraim’s outdoorsmanship allows him, Dearbhla, and Eliza to start a new life in 1861 in West Virginia. Ephraim’s character’s true name is never revealed, marking him as a supplemental character whose purpose is largely to help other characters on their journeys.

Dearbhla is the daughter of an Irish indentured servant family, and she grew up on a plantation in Virginia. After her brothers and father left her, she worked with her mother until her mother’s death. The novel does not explore much of Dearbhla’s life prior to adopting Ephraim, but the close relationship between Dearbhla’s family and the families of enslaved Black people implies that she lived in the same oppressed situation as enslaved people, though with the general privilege of whiteness.

Living close to the wilderness, Dearbhla learned about herbs and outdoorsmanship early in life, and she passes this knowledge on to both Ephraim and Eliza. Dearbhla is a supportive figure in the novel, as she helps Ephraim, Eliza, and ConaLee survive their escape from Virginia and life in the mountains of West Virginia and helps ConaLee start a new life after leaving the asylum.

Dearbhla is an archetypical sage, meaning she possesses spiritual knowledge beyond the understanding of the younger characters. She is a mentor and a guide, but she is also intelligent, using her powers of observation to create the appearance of “conjuring.” Dearbhla insists to Eliza and ConaLee that she does not “conjure,” but Dearbhla uses the public perception of her as a sorceress or witch to protect her from possible attack. Likewise, Dearbhla’s appearance is notably androgynous, with many people noting how “masculine” she seems. Dearbhla likely combines and accentuates her androgyny, in tandem with her supposed “conjuring,” to ward off townspeople who might try to hurt her or her family. Ultimately, Dearbhla’s role is to support other characters, and she dies after securing a bright future for ConaLee and Weed.