At Dusk Natasha Trethewey Summary

In life, no one deserves to suffer from any form of misery and unpleasantness. However, there are times in which people should face suffering. In the poem At Dusk, by Natasha Trethewey, the speaker witnesses a neighbor dealing with one of those times in which pain should be endured and empathizes with her. Using the speaker’s experience and thoughts, Trethewey communicates that people should cope with undesirable feelings if it is for the sake of allowing a loved one to be happy, as well as convey the possibility of the neighbor having gone through an experience similar to that of his or her neighbor. In the beginning, the speaker portrays the situation he or she sees regarding his or her neighbor; the speaker explains that the neighbor is calling for her cat to return home. …show more content…
Following that, the speaker tells him- or herself that he or she is “certain the sounds [he or she makes] are enough to call someone home” if he or she did cry out for someone. This strongly implies that the speaker also has someone who left him or her. During this moment, the speaker is likely looking back at that experience is saying such things to relieve the pain of loneliness she is likely feeling. The speaker does this because he or she knows that it is not right to hold anyone or anything back and keep them from being happy, yet he needs comfort. Through the speaker’s view and attitude in this poem, Trethewey is able to express that a person should make sacrifices for the happiness of people and things he or she love. In today’s society, individuals often affect the decisions others make. Since that is the case, one should not be selfish. Instead, one should allow those one cares about to choose a decent path that makes enables them to be content even if one is not