Scott Sanders's Men At Night

The short story “Men at Night” proves Scott Sanders point that stories are a playground for language by using various literary devices to not only paint a picture but provide the tools for the reader to add their own colours thus giving the reader a chance to develop their imagination and thus their versatility. For instance, throughout the story, the author uses descriptive imagery and carefully curated words to converse with the oft unexplored corners of the human mind. Sentences such as: “I had given up, and instead of sliding hard and compact into doom I found myself made into ribbons of gauze, drifting in a breeze that hadn’t existed just seconds before, so light that anything could pass between what I was and what I would be, while all …show more content…
Throughout the story, the author also uses contrasting ideas to force the reader to dig into the story to find what truly happened. At the beginning of the story, the author writes: “Their connection seemed to come from a history of violence...”(). Later in the story he also writes “My fear turned into sadness...I was alone on the stretch of time between me and the two men, waiting for loss, for giving up, for falling, wanting it to be done to see how or if I would come out on the other side”(). The author cultivates a sense of fear through the story, making it seem as if the main character has gotten into a fight or is in danger. However, throughout the story there are also hints that this feeling is just the wild imagination of a skittish person with quotes like: “He looked like he was snarling but it could have been a yawn”() and “... three tiny figures who met two against one on a distant sidewalk and only nodded when they passed”(). By using these ideas that don’t match up the author forces the reader to think deeper about what truly happened and to use clues about the narrator's personality and the language the author uses to figure out what is truly happening in the