Analysis Of Night By Michael Soto

Although Soto's use of enjambment throughout the poem forces one to read on and provides a means of suggesting one thing when the poem in fact means another, the ending of a sentence without beginning another enjambment also calls special attention, as these are outlier lines. The first time this occurs is when the girl who the speaker is with chooses a piece of chocolate that costs more money than he has. In this line, "...And when she lifted a chocolate/ That cost a dime,/ I didn't say anything" (line 33-35). Soto ends the line with "I didn't say anything and does not continue the poem until the following line. This is a break in his pattern of frequent enjambment and calls attention to this line, which is the first time the speaker is forced …show more content…
This is where the poem's title is explained, as the speaker uses the nickel he has left and an orange to pay for the candy. The cashier accepts this payment, as one later finds out, but the period at the end of the line "I didn't say anything" provides a shift to call attention to the next couple lines. The only other time Soto ends the line and does not begin with a new enjambment is the last line of the poem "...I was making a fire in my hands" (line 55). This line marks the end of the date, or as far as the speaker recalls, and the speaker is merely peeling an orange sitting next to his girl. The orange, in such contrast with the bleak winter, looks like fire in his hands. This finality of the poem is somewhat expected in the last line of the poem to tie up the end, but it also calls attention to …show more content…
After the speaker picks up the young girl from her house and they make their way to the drugstore, the poem changes from the use of "I" and "she" to "we." After passing some scenery, the speaker explains, "...we were breathing/ Before a drugstore. We" (lines 20-21). Soto ends the line with the beginning of a new sentence, calling attention to the transition to "we." The speaker and the girl are now united, just as any tween fantasizes about. While the speaker may be experiencing all these new feelings for the first time, he does understand that the adults around him also experienced the same thing in their youth. This is illustrated in the scene when the speaker does not have enough money to pay for the chocolate and instead tries to pay with a nickel and an orange. He makes and holds eye contact with the saleslady as follows, "The lady's eyes met mine, / And held them, knowing/ Very well what is was all/ About" (lines 39-42). The speaker knows he is taking a chance bartering for the chocolate, but when he meets the lady's eyes she holds them "knowing." By ending the line with this word, Soto creates a mutual understanding between the speaker and the saleslady and suggests that the saleslady has experienced young love before. She knows the attempts to impress a girl for the first time on the first date, and her experience with