The Night Came Slowly

“The Night Came Slowly” by Kate Chopin is a short story written in 1894 and first published in 1895 as “A Scrap and a Sketch.” At less than 500 words, this piece of flash fiction is a brief work that embodies Chopin’s outlook on the world and conveys an appreciation for the simple candor of nature compared to mankind’s biases and prejudices.

Kate Chopin, born as Katherine O’Flaherty, was a late 19th-century American novelist and short story writer. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a wealthy family. In 1870, she married Oscar Chopin and moved with him to Louisiana, where she would live until his untimely death in 1882; many of her stories are set in Louisiana. In 1899, Chopin published The Awakening, which is among her most well-known works today. At the time, this novel about a young wife and mother who abandons her family for the sake of her own fulfillment, only to die by suicide in the end, was condemned for, among other things, its sexual frankness and depiction of an interracial marriage. “The Night Came Slowly” is representative of Chopin’s body of work, which helped inspire the modern feminist literary movement.

This study guide uses this story as published in the first eBook edition of The Complete Works of Kate Chopin by Southern Literary Studies (2006).

The narrator starts the story by expressing a deepening disinterest in people. She reflects on the adage that by observing one person, you can learn more than if you were to read 10 books. She does not agree with this logic. Both men and books cause her pain. They cannot speak to her like a summer night, with its stars and wind.

The narrator describes the arrival of nightfall, as observed while lying under a maple tree. The night creeps out of a valley, assuming the narrator is unaware of it. Distinguishing individual trees and foliage becomes impossible, and all the greenery melts into a single shadowy mass from which night emerges, too. Night comes from the east and west as well, until the only remaining light is that in the sky. This light is visible through the maple leaves overhead, allowing the narrator to observe individual stars. The effect is “solemn” and mysterious (Paragraph 3).

Forms shaped like humans pass by, some even approaching enough to get a look at her. The narrator is unconcerned. They seem ghostlike and unsolid. She is fully immersed in the night’s charm, which she finds powerful yet calming.

Katydids begin to call. Their song, unlike the “chatter” of people (Paragraph 5), strikes the narrator as wise. The katydids simply tell the narrator to sleep. The wind rustles the maple leaves, and the narrator compares this movement to a flirtation between lovers.

The spell is broken—the narrator wonders in frustration why “fools” exist, blaming the broken spell on a “man’s voice” (Paragraph 6). It seems a man has arrived, either just now or earlier in the day, to teach a Bible class. She finds the man detestable, noting with disdain his red cheeks, brazen eyes, and how his gestures match his abrasive way of speaking. The narrator is certain this man has nothing to offer her in terms of knowledge about Christ. The man is desperately young and merely mortal—she would much rather consult the stars, which have actually seen Christ.