The Book of Night Women

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to enslavement, sexual violence, torture, and murder.

The text is primarily occupied with the never-ending violence of slavery and its far-reaching repercussions. Five chapters of the book begin with the words “[e]very negro walk in a circle. Take that and make of it what you will” (33, 120, 223, 313, 421). It is important in the discussion of a cycle of violence to distinguish between the violence that white people inflict as enslavers and the violence that Black people use as a form of coping and resistance. After the initial refrain in Chapter 25, the narrator explains that sometimes enslaved people are forced to walk the white man’s circle. The difference is that white men choose their circle: “Plenty have choice to walk straight and away, yet plenty come back to where them start. Others never leave” (313). Enslavers have the power, at any given moment, to end the cycle. Enslaved people can only operate within the confines of their enslavement.

The cycle begins with enslavement: Without a chance to choose, Black people are doomed to the cycle of slavery that requires violence. Only after getting revenge does anyone have the chance to learn what

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