“Nighttime Fires” By Regina Barreca Essays Examples

“Nighttime Fires” is a free verse poem. The narrator relates the nighttime activities of her immediate family. Whenever there is a fire in the area, the father piles the family into the car and they race off to witness the destruction. This practice began when the father lost his job and is now unemployed. The narrator is an innocent, only five years old. The poem gives the reader an insight into the mental breakdown and depression the father is experiencing through the words of his confused, five year old child.
The father is described as having the time to pursue the fires because he has no job at the moment. He sleeps late and stays up late. “It was after my father/ lost his job, so not getting up in the morning/ gave him time: awake past midnight, he read old newspapers/ with no news” (4-7). There is no “news” because the paper are old so the narrator perceives the information in them to be a thing of the past and old. The reader is only given the child’s observations of the father, there is no judgement but it can be inferred the father is frustrated and perhaps angry. “tried the crosswords until he split the pencil/ between his teeth, mad.” (7-8).
The father has a perverse interest in the fires. They bring him contentment and comfort. “My old man/ liked driving to the rich neighborhoods best, swearing in a good mood” (12-13). When they arrive at the location of the fire the father is depicted as, “my father smiled a smile/ from a secret, brittle heart. His face lit up in the heat given off by the destruction” (17-19). This contentment spills over to the family and leaves and impression on the child, “My father who never held us/would take my hand” (22-23). The narrator feels an intimacy with the father during these fires.
Barreca uses rich imagery in the language of the poem (Meyer 24). The choice of language depicts the fires as being sinister, violent. She describes the procession of the fire trucks, “that snaked like dragons/ and split the silent streets.” (14-15). As the house burns the narrator observes, “I bent my head backwards to see where sparks/ ate up the sky.” (21-22). The use of the similes and metaphors give the fire a life of its own. The fire is like an animal eating the house. As the fire completes its consumption of the house the author describes, “falling cinders that/ covered the ground like snow” (23-24). Generally, falling snow is perceived as quiet and tranquil.
Barreca closes the poem with the mother relived to be returning home, she must understand what the father is feeling, “My mother watched my father, not the house. She was happy only when we were ready to go, when it was finally over/ and nothing else could burn.” (25-28). This line represents the unemployment and the mother’s hope that it too will soon be over. Once the fire is finished and the family is returning home the narrator watches her father in the car, “I could see his quiet face in the/ rearview mirror, eyes like hallways filled with smoke.” (30-31). The narrator cannot understand the complex emotions of the mother and father nor does she understand the seriousness of being unemployed but her observations of her mother, father and the fire capture the despair and anger it has caused.

References

Meyer, Michael. Poetry: an Introduction. Boston: Bedford Books, 2009.