The Last Days of Night

“This was like no fire they’d ever witnessed. This was electricity. And the dark marvel of man-made lightning was as mysterious and incomprehensible as an Old Testament plague.” 

In this quote, Paul compares the experience of people witnessing electricity for the first time to ancient people inventing Biblical narratives. This comparison shows how different electricity is from anything else anyone has ever seen before; an invention of mythic proportions. 

“‘Mr. Cravath, there’s a war on, in case you haven’t noticed. Within the next few years, someone is going to build an electrical system that lights this entire nation.’” 

This moment in history is unlike any other. This excerpt attempts to impress upon Paul the historical gravity of the situation in which he is a key player. It also serves to introduce war as a symbol for the race between inventors, later called “The Current War.” 

“All stories are love stories. Paul remembered someone famous saying that. Thomas Edison’s would be no exception. All men get the things they love. The tragedy of some men is not that they are denied, but that they wish they’d loved something else.” 

This quote foreshadows the ultimate lesson Paul learns through the novel. It urges the reader to pay attention to what each character’s motivations are and foreshadows the change in Paul’s motivation at the end of the novel.