Free Essay

Black Dog

In: English and Literature

Submitted By choksondik
Words 708
Pages 3
The Black Dog
When you reach a certain point in life, you wonder what you’ve been missing, and you start reflecting on your past experiences. You compare your life when you were young to the life you have today. Some people realize the big change, and it’s shocking to them, they break down and enter a mid-life crisis. When you worry too much, you have to replace it with something else, like a way to make yourself understand how you ended up here and that’s where the black dog shows up.
Brenda Case is a 54 year old woman who lives with her husband John Case. She is unemployed but stays at home and takes care of the house. John is about the same age as her, his job is well paid so they don’t have any financial worries. Both Brenda and John have reached a certain stage in life; they have achieved what most people set out to do: Get a family with children and to keep a good economy.
Their income is great, and the children have moved out. They have a solid marriage, and their relationship is good, though the passionate love has most likely faded as time passed. They still love each other but everyday life is getting boring.
Both daughters are intelligent young women; they are the product of the Thatcher period. They are well educated and hard working, and they focus on always keeping Brenda active. When Brenda sees the black dog, they try to find a new interest for her. Even though they try, they don’t succeed, even though Brenda agrees to do the things, she never goes through with it, and she ends up back in the couch. They don’t understand their mother’s issue. Brenda does need a new interest, since she is going through the midlife crisis; the dog symbolizes the end of her young days, and the beginning of a new period of her life. She has already completed all her previous life goals, so she needs to find a new goal, or a new assignment. That’s why she sees the dog. She observes it, and in the end of the story, she overcomes her fear of it. She takes care of it, buying it a basket in the kitchen. The dog is her new interest, and taking care of it is her new occupation.
The daughters discuss the problems that their mother is having with their father. “”It’s her age,” said the youngest. “Of course it’s her age,” snorted the eldest. (page 134 lines 7-10)
The black dog incident started one random day when John came home. That means the problem showed up out of the blue and gave her these hallucinations. In the quote they blame the black dog on her age, saying it’s because of the age. That’s why when John looks in the mirror and notices how much he has aged; he looked in the mirror and was startled by the face that was so unlike his own. After he had this revelation, he starts seeing the black dog too. It’s a product of their imagination, to find an explanation for their aging, and to understand why things aren’t what they used to be. You go through 3 phases; the first one is fear, when Brenda sits at home, not wanting to go outside because she is scared of the dog. The second phase is overcoming your fear, when Brenda goes shopping, she still fears the dog, but she still goes out of the house, and she realizes that the dog isn’t hurting her. The last phase is acceptance; she accepts the dog in her life and lets it in to the house. She learns to live with it. Just like all other uncontrollable factors in life, you need to learn to live with them, and accept the changes you have to go through. Life isn’t always a walk in the park, and you can’t live your life in the past and not accept change. To live your life, you have to not fear change, and accept that change is a part of life.

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Black Dog Of Fate Analysis

...In America, inhabitants find it difficult to see how other cultures go about their daily lives and their beliefs on different items of value, although American society is a melting pot of different nationalities. In Black Dog of Fate, the author, Peter Balakian resided America his entire life, however, his relatives were Armenian and endured great losses in the Armenian genocide. In Baghdad Without A Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia, the author, Tony Horwitz, grew up in the United States and moved to the Middle East so that his wife could pursue her career, and he became a reporter for United States international stories. Although both authors experienced culture outside that of the United States, they each utilized the stories from the...

Words: 401 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Animal Cruelty Memo

...shooting a dog. ARRIVAL/CONTACT>>> Upon arrival, I observed the dog lying in the drainage ditch on its right side and I made contact with wit Mrs. Dorsey Rains (the complainant). I made contact with Mrs. Dorsey Rains (the complainant). Mrs. Rains stated that she was in the back yard of her residence when she heard a loud bang sound. Mrs. Rains stated that she ran to the front yard to see what was going on and didn’t observe anything. Mrs. Rain said when she started to walk to her back yard again she heard a loud yell saying Mrs. Rains; she stopped and walked over to her neighbor Mrs....

Words: 411 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Dog Domestication Essay

...It is suggested that dog domestication occurred in Eastern China, south of the Yangtze river around 16,00 years ago (Derr). Throughout history dogs have played an important and =beneficial role in accompanying humans in various forms of practical utilities such as, sheep dogs, hunting dogs, and even serving as livestock. Most of these jobs for dogs are still used to this day even after thousands of years, however in the modern day many new doors have opened for our canine companions, giving them new opportunities to play a bigger and more significant part in society. Some of these circumstances include help in science and research technology, military and security, as well as some therapeutic aspects such as service and comfort dogs. Although...

Words: 1032 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Lost and Found

...it could be for anyone. I was just thinking about my dog that I have lost; it hurt so bad I felt like I would never recover. You may feel empty and so depleted of emotion but then something comes into your life that makes you light up. It happened to me and I hope it happens for everyone else who has faced a loss of some kind. About six years ago I had a beautiful dog named Bear; he was very furry and had the cutest squirrel like tail. I loved him tremendously; he was my playmate, and my best friend. Unfortunately Bear was an older dog and passed away over night which still shocked my whole family because he played like a puppy the night before I went to sleep. I was so devastated and could not stop crying, I told my mom through streaming tears that I never want another dog again. I was so distraught that I actually thought I would never again be able to love another dog. After a few months of grieving the loss of my wonderful dog Bear, I asked my mom if we could get another. I was shocked I felt this way but was pretty sure I needed to have another dog in my life and thankfully she agreed. I wanted to get a dog from a shelter, to save them from being euthanized and everyone in my family agreed. My mom and dad asked me and my sister if we were sure this is what we wanted and we said yes and that weekend we went to a shelter. We seen all kinds of dogs, all too cute for words but no puppies, then we seen a dog...

Words: 1059 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Anthropomorphize Dogs

...differences lead us to anthropomorphize dogs. This anthropomorphization can have many negative effects on our canine friends. Anthropomorphism is when you treat animals as if they were our fellow humans, although this is a big problem because animals are completely different than humans mentally and emotionally. Dogs don’t see as many colors and don't see as clear, but they are able to see well in the dark. Dogs see different than we as humans because of their alternate eye construct. This is supposedly due to the fact that “dogs have no fovea (or area with 100% cones), it is estimated their eye for detail is 6 times poorer...

Words: 1340 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Descriptive Essay

...Descriptive Essay By Moon 11-10-2012 My Dog Named Beau Lying on my living room floor is a curled up fuzzy-ball dog named Beau. When I was a kid, my mother had a dog and he lived in a cage all his life. I had always wanted a dog as a child, and now I have found a perfect dog. He is adorable, smart, loving and his has an up lifting personality. He will never live in a cage. Beau was born in Venango, NE. He is from the Cairn Breed. His father was Sebastian, who was more handsome than King Charles, and his mom’s name was Amanda. Beau is very handsome. He has soft curly hair and a stocky body shape. He has white, light and French vanilla ice creme colored hair. He has beautiful glass brown marble eyes, a big round black clown nose, and cute little mouse-like triangular ears. He also has a cute round-shaped face. When he was 2 months old, he was so tiny and adorable, the size of a fava bean. I held him in my palm; his fur was silky and smooth, especially when he fell asleep on my lap. I often walked him outside of my apartment, and he had a curious approach to everything, smells, sounds or sights. As a puppy, he loved to play with my flip flop, even though the flip flop was bigger than he. He found a way to lift his face up so he could drag the sandal without tripping over it. When I spoke to him, his little triangle ears flipped upward and his head tilted to the side; he looked at me with a response like he knew what I was saying to him. As Beau...

Words: 856 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Jack Russells-Personal Narrative

...My whole family loves jack Russells we have only had that dog breed for the longest time. It was about 9 ½  years ago when our second jack Russel Hannah had died, everyone in my family loved her to pieces but sadly she was gone. I noticed that our third jack Russell Lexi was moping around the house and wouldn't play with us for the longest time. I had been talking to my parents begging them to let me and my sisters get another jack Russell, that soon enough would be Sandy.     On my sixth birthday, my parents told me and my two sisters get into the car, i kept asking where we were going for almost half of the trip. We have arrived in Independence on a grass field that had an old looking barn sitting in the middle. I was scared to go into it, my...

Words: 686 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Volunteering

...animal shelters for the Hinesville area, recorded receiving approximately 30 dogs and cats each day, and 10,000 animals each year. More than four of these animals are euthanized daily, simply because the facility does not have adequate accommodations for the growing population of strays. But Liberty Humane Shelter has committed to making a change for the better to these statistics. Since 2012, the shelter has adopted out 218 cats and 325 dogs. As a “no kill” shelter which takes in animals from multiple rescues, the public, as well as the local humane society, Liberty Humane Shelter understands that animals do not deserve to die simply because they have no home. Equipped with two caged cat rooms for kittens, grown cats and one non caged room for recreation, five spacious dog rooms, and a well equipped clinic, LHS can provide a true haven to animals, both short term and long term. Every animal that is taken in is given the best medical attention available, and automatically spayed or neutered. Each animal also receives a full round of vaccinations and is implanted with a microchip. Unlike many over-populated shelters anxious to place their animals in any home, LHS carefully screens potential adopters. Adoptees are judged on their care of previous pets, the amount of time they can dedicate to a new pet, and whether the size of their house is appropriate to the needs of the pet. With the adoption of a dog, the new owners receive a full medical...

Words: 1264 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Animal Assisted Therapy In Prisons

...violence levels in Canadian prisons. Through the use of animal-assisted therapy in prisons, violence levels decrease due to changes in prisoner behaviors and attitudes (Black et al., 2011) (Furst, 2006) (Walsh, 2009), an improved prison environment (Britton & Button, 2005) (Jasperson, 2010), and the ability for prisoners to give back to their community (Britton & Button, 2005) (Furst, 2006). Over the past two decades, animal assisted therapy (AAT) through prison-based animal programs has improved the behavior and attitudes of prisoners (Furst, 2006). Rather than...

Words: 1032 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Expect the Unexpected

...Expect the Unexpected Towards the end of my junior year in high school an unexpected event occurred that changed my life. During my P.E. class I was participating in a basketball related activity that led to me getting injured. When I first realized that I was injured my first reaction was to fall to the ground and hold on to the part of my body that was hurting. After doing so, I tried to stand up and walk but I couldn’t because I began to feel excruciating pains in my left ankle. When my friends and teacher saw me struggling to walk, they all came to help me and my teacher gave me a chair to sit in. When I sat down in the chair, my teacher began to examine my ankle. He told me to turn my ankle from left to right while asking me if doing any of these motions was painful. When he finished examining my ankle he went over to the main office to tell one of the secretaries to call my father. Finally my father arrived at my school and instead of taking me straight to the hospital he began to ask me multiple questions about how I got injured which made me really angry. Eventually, he realized I was upset me so he took me to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital the woman at the front desk checked me in, gave me a wheelchair, and then told us that we had to sit in the waiting room until it was time for the doctor to examine me. When the doctor was ready to see me, my father pushed me into the examination room and the doctor began to ask me questions about my ankle. After...

Words: 1339 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Interesting Tail

...The year was 1971 late June; the family pet dog Hilda had a litter of puppies about seven weeks earlier. The puppies six in all, where the spitting image of their mother, black and tan long haired Doxies cute as they could be. One of the puppies a female had made an attachment to me and would follow me everywhere I went. I decided to name her Gertrude or Gertie for short. She was my soul mate and I loved her with every fiber of my being. In my spare time, I volunteer at the local pet store, and would go there on weekends and after school to help take care of the animals, and do odd jobs that needed to be done like repairing broken fish tanks and stuff like that . One Saturday. I decided to take Gertie with me, it never accrued to me to put her on a leash because she was never more than two steps away from me at all times, and I carried her most of the time, she only weighed a few pounds. At the time there was no leash law like there is today, so off we went to the pet store. We were at the pet store for hours and it was long past to dinner time and I was getting very hungry the store owner volunteered to pay for dinner, if I ran across the street and picked it up, I said sure. So I ran across the street to grab a couple of hot dogs it was getting late in the day and the traffic was pretty heavy, but I darted across with no problems. In my haste and hunger I had totally forgotten about little Gertie my mind was on my aching stomach. So when I got back, the owner...

Words: 622 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Household Dog

...The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris)[2][3] is a subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), a member of the Canidae family of the mammalian order Carnivora. The term "domestic dog" is generally used for both domesticated and feral varieties. The dog was the first domesticated animal[4] and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and pet animal in human history. The word "dog" can also refer to the male of a canine species,[5] as opposed to the word "bitch" which refers to the female of the species. MtDNA evidence shows an evolutionary split between the modern dog's lineage and the modern wolf's lineage around 100,000 years ago but, as of 2013, the oldest fossil specimens genetically linked to the modern dog's lineage date to approximately 33,000–36,000 years ago.[4][6] Dogs' value to early human hunter-gatherers led to them quickly becoming ubiquitous across world cultures. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This impact on human society has given them the nickname "man's best friend" in the Western world. In some cultures, however, dogs are also a source of meat.[7][8] In 2001, there were estimated to be 400 million dogs in the world.[9] Most breeds of dogs are at most a few hundred years old, having been artificially selected for particular morphologies and behaviors by people for specific functional roles. Through...

Words: 15783 - Pages: 64

Free Essay

Cats and Dogs

...Fund 16 November 2001 Cats and Dogs This compare and contrast essay is for English composition, it will be on cats, and dogs, and The three points are going to be about; fur, hearing, and dogs being omnivorous, and cats being carnivores. Cats and dogs are at the top of the list for pets in the U.S. today. One can train dogs with a lot of time, and hard work, yet most cats are difficult or not trainable at all. Most dogs and cats have different lengths of hair, and they come in many colors, and lengths. They both have a strong sense of hearing, and a tremendous sense of smell. My family and I have owned many pets. We currently have two dogs, and two cats. Phoebe is a Yellow Lab with short blonde hair, and Lizzie is a Black Lab with short black hair. Most dogs shed, but there are some breeds that shed remarkably little, or not at all. Brushing a dog’s coat will cut down on the amount of hair on the furniture, and floors. We adopted our two cats from an animal shelter. Shockte has short white hair, and Izzy has long gray hair. Cats are easier to take care of than dogs due to their self-grooming habits; therefore, they do not need baths regularly. The only problem is they do get hairballs that can lead to health problems. There are three ways to rid a cat of a hairball; a bowel movement, regurgitation, or having them surgically removed. The more love and affection a pet gets, the more they are likely to give back. Cats and dogs love to play and must receive attention...

Words: 566 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

A Day in the Life of a Chihuahua

...A Day in the Life of a Chihuahua Ruth Wilson ENG/340 February 23, 2012 Ronald Tatum Rocco I see a photograph of a brown and black Chihuahua and I think of Rocco. Rocco is a spoiled dog. I became Rocco’s owner three and a half years ago. At the time we became Rocco’s owners I was traveling five to six days a week and thought it was good for mom to have a companion. Rocco has always slept with a human. He likes to crawl under the blankets and burrows in. One day after I came home from an extended work trip he just started staying with me. Now he is with me wherever I am. Rocco is the king of the house. If he wants your attention he will use his nose to nudge your hand. If that doesn’t work he will sit on your chest and look at you with his big blue eyes and rub his head on your chest as if to say, “I’m here stop ignoring me.” The thing about Chihuahua’s is their eyes. They have these bulging eyes which show so much expression. The phrase of puppy dog eyes applies. Rocco’s day starts at nine a.m. After he eats he runs laps round the living room. I like to watch him because he goes really fast and sometimes will run into the couch or bedroom door because he is unable to stop. After I bring out my computer and start working on school work. He tilts his head and looks at me with that disgusted look and lies next to me and takes his nap. Rocco does not like my laptop. Whenever I bring out the laptop to do my homework or socialize for a while he looks...

Words: 427 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Pets In The White House By John F. Kennedy

...are a common thing found in the White House. Many of the presidents had pets in the White House. Infact, John F. Kennedy has 21 pets and Theodore Roosevelt had about 50 pets that lived in the White House, or on the White House grounds. Kennedy had: dogs, cats, birds, horses, ponies, a hamster, and a rabbit. Although JFK had 21 pets, there are only two living there right now. Living in the White House now are two Portuguese Water Dogs. They are owned by President Obama’s family. THe two dogs names are, Bo and Sunny. You may not have known that many other presidents also had pets. Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Rutherford B. Hayes, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, John Tyler, Andrew Jackson, John Adams, and George Washington all had five or more pets that lived in the White House. Many different president had pets....

Words: 497 - Pages: 2