TOW #11: "Night"

                In his short essay “Night”, Tony Judt reveals great insights into his life as a person who suffers from ALS. The disease has slowly taken away feeling in his limbs until Judt became a quadriplegic, unable to move almost everything but his head. This has affected every part of Judt’s life, even parts that most of us would not even think of because we take so many of our daily activities for granted. In sharing how Judt spends his time and copes with his immobility, Judt speaks to those who have never had that kind of experience and cannot possibly understand what having such a disease is like. Many people have loved ones who suffer for illnesses like ALS. They see their family or friends suffering and slowly losing control over their body, and do not understand what to do or how to help. In order to explain to the general population what he and others experience, Judt mainly uses anecdotes. He talks about his night habits, saying “am then covered, my hands placed outside the blanket to afford me the illusion of mobility but wrapped nonetheless since—like the rest of me—they now suffer from a permanent sensation of cold. I am offered a final scratch on any of a dozen itchy spots from hairline to toe; the Bi-Pap breathing device in my nose is adjusted to a necessarily uncomfortable level of tightness to ensure that it does not slip in the night; my glasses are removed…and there I lie: trussed, myopic, and motionless like a modern-day mummy, alone in my corporeal prison, accompanied for the rest of the night only by my thoughts”. This short description reveals volumes about his like, also including vivid metaphors and imagery to display how truly uncomfortable and unnatural it is for those who suffer from ALS to withstand daily tasks. Even simple things, like shifting positions in the middle of the night, are impossible for people like Judt. He is forced to endure being uncomfortable for hours on end with being able to do anything about it, making his audience realize how much they take normal mobility for granted.