The theme of light and darkness is of significance since most of the story takes place late in the afternoon and at night, and the narrative focuses on the relationship of life and death. Elizabeth Bates awaits her husband as shadows lengthen, her son emerges from dark undergrowth, and her daughter returns late from school. The family huddles in the house where the light is insufficient for Elizabeth’s son John, who, like his father, always craves more brightness and warmth than his home provides.
Walter Bates, a miner, is the husband of Elizabeth Bates and the father of John and Annie. He is probably dead from the time the story begins, and he is present in the story only in the words and thoughts of his wife, his children, his mother, and his neighbors. He is a handsome and energetic young man who it seems wooed Elizabeth with his charm. Even in death, he retains his ‘‘handsome body,’’ ‘‘fine limbs,’’ and blond good looks. The history of his marriage is a sad one; he has become increasingly reckless and irresponsible and is prone to heavy drinking and other forms of excess.
Mrs. Bates is the mother of Walter Bates, the miner whose death is at the heart of this story. A somewhat naive and irritable, self-pitying woman of about sixty, Mrs. Bates is asked by a neighbor to go and sit with her daughter-in-law when it is discovered that Walter has had an accident in the mine. She sits with Elizabeth, voicing her fears about the fate of her son and recalling memories of his early life. When Walter’s dead body is brought into the house, she begins to weep and lament, and she has to be quieted so that she doesn’t wake her grandchildren.
Elizabeth waits anxiously for her husband. She is concerned for his safety and at the same time angry at the trouble he has made for her by coming home late, and drunk, so often. She ponders their unsatisfactory relationship and tries to keep up appearances with her two young children.
Then word comes that there has been an accident and that her husband has been killed. His body is brought into the house and laid out (undamaged because he died of suffocation). Washing the body with her mother-in-law, she goes through a complex series of reactions, including curiosity, anger, sympathy, forgiveness, and cool appraisal. She sees that the two of them had long ago rejected something deep within the other, and that they had lived utterly separate lives. At the end she is "grateful to death, which restored the truth."
