Never Whistle at Night Literary Elements

Horror Fiction / Native American Folklore

The stories are set in various locations often remote or rural. Their settings range from historical periods to contemporary times.

The short stories predominantly use a first-person or limited third-person point of view.

Tone: Tense, Urgent, and Ominous.
Mood: Eerie with a sense of dread and suspense.

The protagonists are ordinary people from Indigenous backgrounds. The antagonists are usually supernatural entities or malevolent forces rooted in folklore.

The central conflict in each story typically revolves around man vs. supernatural where the characters must confront otherworldly beings or curses.

The climaxes are often intense confrontations between the protagonist and the supernatural force. For instance, in "Kushtuka," the climax occurs when the protagonist must decide whether to shoot Buck to prevent further killings.

Many stories hint at the horror to come through subtle details and ominous signs. For example, in "The Scientist’s Horror Story," the mention of a "ghost town" foreshadows the potentially supernatural events that will unfold later in the story.

In "Kushtuka, the statement, "Some deer you got out here, huh...That wasn’t a deer" underplays the shock of encountering something supernatural.

The narratives reference Indigenous myths and historical events. For example, the Kushtuka is a creature from Tlingit folklore.

In "The Scientist’s Horror Story," the narrator asserts “The shacks were tagged with names and cartoon scribbles—Bart Simpson wearing turquoise; a turtle on a skateboard; two bluebirds with long, shapely human legs; the phrase there is no tomorrow written over and over and over again in a tornado of words.”

This vivid description adds to the eerie and abandoned atmosphere of the ghost town.

Some stories examine paradoxical themes, such as the coexistence of ancient traditions and modern life. Moreover, the juxtaposition of beauty and horror in nature.

"They scream because this is the first time they see light. They scream because it is the first time air touches them. They cry to rid their bodies of the world they left behind."
In this excerpt from “Eulogy for a Brother, Resurrected,” the repetition creates a parallel structure that accentuates the newborn's reaction to the new environment.

N/A

"Beside him, buried inside a shirt, the clock kept ticking, marking my sin and my failure to act. I’d wound it tight."

The clock is given the human characteristic of marking sins and failures.