Analysis Of It's A Night Job

It’s a Night Job is a short story written by Ugandan writer Joanita Male. The story was written and published in early 2013 in Suubi, a collection of short stories and poems by various authors from the African Writers Trust’s joint mentoring and creative writing program produced in association with the British Council Uganda. It’s a Night Job tells the experience of a college-age girl who is a prostitute for her “night job”. The two-page story narrates her thoughts, feelings, and observations on the job from a first person point of view.

The story opens with a bold statement by the main character denying choosing her night job, stating that it chose her and that she was prepared for it because her mother and her mother’s mother had the same job. This immediately thrusts the reader into wondering what the main character’s night job could possibly be and why she seemed to be so adamant about the fact that she did not choose it for herself. The main character than

This sentence shows a semblance of normalcy. It shows how, even with the unconventionality of their job, prostitutes are normal people who are also working to sustain themselves and their families.

Overall, It’s a Night Job by Joanita Male is a wonderful short story. It is a well-crafted work with no obvious grammatical or spelling errors and uses rather simple language which any average reader could understand. Male manages to tell such a multi-layered story with so many subtle implications about the subject of prostitution in only two pages. It’s a rather eye-opening story about what prostitutes might be thinking or feeling about their jobs and it is a highly recommendable