Stuart Dybek and Motifs
The story describes the all-night diner as a lighthouse for loners or insomniacs. Directly inspired by Ed Hopper's famous painting titled "Nighthawks," the story centers around the same figures in the painting and has the same voyeuristic quality that Hopper is known for in his work. While Hopper's central theme might end there, Dybeck takes it further in "Insomnia." He provides an intimate glimpse into the lives of these characters and their reasons why they're in the all-night diner. The one common denominator between the characters is that they all share the same affliction of insomnia. However, their insomnia is a symptom of something more profound, which is their loneliness. Dybeck uses "glass" or "windows" as a motif to step into their individual lives and experience their unique sense of loneliness.
Each little segment about the characters is like a "window" or a passage into their loneliness and the reasons why. In fact, the reader is pulled into the story through the big window of the diner with a reflection of a kiss. The motif is first introduced when a young woman stops in front of the diner window to fix her hair and makeup.
"Earlier this evening, when most of the stools were taken, a woman in heels and a summer dress stopped outside and stood peering in as if looking for someone. At least it seemed that way at first before it became clear that she'd only stopped to fix her makeup in the reflection of the plate glass. There were mostly men at the counter, and they pretended not to watch as she stroked her comb through her hair. She seemed so unconscious of their presence that watching her would have been like spying on a woman before her own bedroom mirror." (pg 96-97)
There is an entire interaction going on between the young woman and the men. What connects them is the same thing that separates them, the clear glass window of the diner. She is on the outside of the diner, by herself applying makeup, using the window's reflection. While inside the diner, watch her and speculate about her life on the other side of the window. The interaction connects them, but the window between them separates them. Preventing their paths to intersect, and therefore keeping them separate and alone.
In the last sentence of that passage, Dybek alludes to another type of "window," one that is personal and private, repeating the motif.
Dybeck also brings the reader right up close to the young woman is fixing her hair and makeup. As the young woman is in front of the diner window, Dybeck pulls the reader inside the diner through the glass/window to describe the men at the counter watching the young woman outside. Dybeck inserts the reader inside the diner, looking out, watching the young woman, with the men at the counter trying to observe her discreetly.
When she steps away from the window, the reflection of the lipstick she'd applied seemed to remain hovering on the glass-like an impression of a kiss. "The men in the diner pretended to ignore it too, although in its way the reflected kiss was no less miraculous than the tears rolling down the cheeks of a parish church's plaster Virgin…" (Pg. 97)
Although the men try to ignore it, the impression of the kiss is compared to a miraculous event. The image or its inherent feeling is being held onto strongly by faith, which reveals the depth of their loneliness.
By the end of the page, the apparition of the kiss leaves the men as well and disappears into the city. "Perhaps the kiss crosses the city, riding the blurred window of a subway, or a cab running red lights down a boulevard of black glass." (Pg. 97). Again the word and the object "glass" is used to bring the reader back into and inside the all-night diner, where the focus now is on the couple sitting side by side.
"That couple, stretching out the night at the end of the counter, has been here before. They sit side by side like lovers, and yet there's something detached enough about them so that they could pass for strangers. It might be the way they sit staring ahead rather than looking at each other, or that their hands on the countertop don't quite touch, but it's passion, not indifference, that is responsible for that." (Pg. 98)
The reader is back inside the diner and now has an up-close view of the couple sitting at the counter. The reader is given a glimpse of their ambiguous but palpable relationship, another window into the lives of these characters. They sit side by side but are still held apart by an invisible force that Dybeck names passion. Passion is the same force that brings them together but prevents them from
However, it is another "window," only this time between the characters and the reader. Leaving the desire undefined leads the reader to assume what that might be. They become the men at the diner, watching the young woman. The couple is "staring head, rather than looking at each other." They are in their little worlds, "completely unconscious" of being observed, like the young woman in the previous passage.
