Summary of Oliver Goldsmith's A City Night-Piece

 

A City Night-Piece

-          Oliver Goldsmith

Introduction

Oliver Goldsmith is a poet, dramatist, essayist and a novelist.  He has contributed to English literature in all its forms.  His works are known for their observation of his society.  He explains in detail about the people and the setting of age in all his works.  A City Night-Piece is a short essay about Goldsmith’s experience during a night.  He walks alone by 2.00 a.m. and observes the people and the happenings in the streets of London.

London at 2.00 a.m.

Goldsmith comes out by 2.00 a.m. and finds the taper busy rising and falling into the socket.  The watchman is almost asleep.  People who worked hard are asleep.  People who are suffering from guilt and despair, drunkards, robbers and people who commit suicide are the ones who are awake.

Goldsmith’s Philosophical Thoughts

Goldsmith stops his observation and decides to walk around the streets.  All streets are empty without people.  A few hours before all the streets were full of people, who were very proud.  By 2.00 a.m., there are no people and no pride.  The sound of a dog and a chiming clock is heard.  All human beings are silent.  It is like a mockery of human pride.  Goldsmith thinks of a period where a future traveler like him may come and look at the empty city.  The traveler would see bushes and plants in the place of churches.  Reptiles will be seen in temples and theatres.   All places would have fallen and become empty.  The rich and influential people would become dead.  Every human being and their pride will become nothing.

The People at 2.00 a.m.

Goldsmith looks at the few people who are found in the street at that part of the day.  They are the people who wear a mask during day time.  These people will hide themselves during day.  These people are strangers, wanderers and orphans, who usually stay in the streets and before the houses of the rich.  These people horrify Goldsmith and they create pity.  Some people are without proper clothes and many are with diseases.  There are some women, who are turned to be prostitutes by rich men.  These women were beautiful once.  They were misused by villains who are rich.  These women are now suffering and shivering in snow.  The villains who ruined their life are happy and peaceful.

Conclusion

Goldsmith finds it difficult to see the suffering of all these people.  The world, for him, will give him only sufferings.  People are suffering because of the small habits of the rich people.  The powerful people destroy their life.  The poor people only cry out of pain.  Even laws become an enemy to the poor.  Goldsmith feels bad for observing such people, because it pains him.  He cannot help them and this makes him suffer more than those people.