“The owl’s reputation might be beyond salvation. Who gets up early? Farmers, bakers, doctors. Who stays up late? Muggers, streetwalkers, cat burglars.”
(Fadiman 5)
Purpose
- To defend Night Owls against common stereotypes
- To prove that society needs Night Owls and why
- To explain the benefits of being a Night Owl
Style
Mode: Description / Classifying and Dividing/ Comparing and Contrasting/ Persuasion and Argument
Audience
- To anyone who will read the article
- To those who wrongly judge night owls
- To everyone that does not see the value of Night Owls
Conclusion
Discuss: Are you a night owl or a morning lark?
**Fadiman, Anne. “Night Owl.” The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. Shorter 13th ed. Peterson, Linda H., John C. Brereton, Joseph Bizup, Anne E. Fernald, and Melissa A. Goldthwaite. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. 3-10. Print.
Summary
Genre
Word Choice
- Logos
- Elevated and Formal
- Numerous Alliterations
- Analytical and Informative
- Negative Connotations of night
Narrative
Personal Account
Cultural Analysis
- Morning people are meadowlarks, and lovers of the night are referred to as snowy owls.
- “Out of every ten people, eight follow a normal circadian cycle (that is, rising naturally at around 7:30 am); one is a lark; and one is an owl” (page 4).
- Every person has certain sleep patterns that are “genetically encoded and cannot be erased” (page 4). Thus, “once an owl, always an owl” (page 4).
- She inherited her owlishness from her father who cannot sleep “without at least an hour of rigorous mental games”(page 6).
- She names a plethora of geniuses who also could “think better at night” including F Scott Fitzgerald (page 7).
- She prefers the night over the day because there are no responsibilities or duties to be performed. Her best writing happens “when the rest of the world is sleeping” (page 9).
- To conclude, she quotes Dickens and
bids goodnight to the reader.
Night Owl