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19 pages 38 minutes read

Linda Pastan

The Coming on of Night

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2001

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Symbols & Motifs

Night

In “The Coming on of Night,” night is the central metaphor for death. By placing this metaphor in the title, Pastan makes it clear that death is not only at the center of the poem but at the center of life. Like death, night is predictable. It happens at the end of every day the way death happens at the end of each person’s life. Although nobody predicts exactly how they are going to die or when it will arrive, by old age it becomes predictable the way night is predictable at evening time. Although death can be frightening and unfamiliar, Pastan treats it as natural. She places the focus not on night itself but on “the peace / of evensong” (Lines 9-10), which is the time before night arrives. In this way, she focuses the attention of the reader not on death but on the time of life in which one can sense death coming and can experience the last of life the way one experiences the peace of the evening.

Fire

Fire is used repeatedly as a metaphor for life and for aspects of life that require more life-force and energy. Pastan compares “ambition” (Line 1) to a “faulty / pilot light” (Lines 1-2). A pilot light releases fire on a stove and allows a person to cook, though if it is faulty it will eventually go out. That is true of all light and fire. Although it is bright and powerful, and although it can be used to attract attention, cook food, and illuminate, it is also easy to extinguish. In Stanza 2, Pastan notes that “even those whose fiery / eccentricities seemed / inextinguishable” (Lines 5-7) will inevitably “[fade] into / darkness or [be] snuffed out” (Lines 7-8). By comparing life to fire, Pastan suggests that it is ephemeral and limited by time, the way a fire can only burn so long before it eventually runs out of material to consume.

Clocks

This poem is ultimately about time. Tracking “The Coming on of Night” is a way of measuring time. When Pastan writes, “All the clocks are changed now” (Line 14), she is suggesting that the man-made aspects of time have also changed; that is to say the way that a human being thinks of time has changed. Rather than saying “the sun has changed” or “night has changed,” she refers only to the man-made object changing. It is important to note that Pastan uses the passive voice in this sentence, suggesting that someone has changed the clocks without the speaker or others approving or disapproving. It simply happens the same way that the “coming on of night” happens. Human beings do not have any control over this change, yet it affects “All the clocks” (Line 14) around them, not just their own clocks. This suggests that a person in their twilight years must completely re-orient themselves to a new concept of time, one that is shorter in all aspects.

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