Analysis of “Dogs Death” by John Updike Essay Example

my family, one of my children. I was unaware my dog was sick and the death was sudden and unexpected.

When John says “As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin and her heart was learning to lie down forever” (Updike, 1953) I was taken back in my own mind to my similar situation. In this essay I choose to use the Reader-Response approach because this comment especially captured my imagination and caused me to feel a lot of emotion and pain. It also took me back to a past event that I most certainly had the desire to escape from. In Reader-Response analysis I asked myself if it captured my imagination, did it connect me with a feeling or emotion and did my connection reinforce things I knew?

I can answer this with a big yes! I think the meaning of John Updike’s literary piece is about love, death and loss. Most importantly in the following statement we clearly see the piece is also about dignity in death. “Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor”. (Updike, 1953) He uses statements that give the dog human qualities that we can relate to, especially on an emotional level. “In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried to bite my hand and died”. (Updike, 1953) This statement again shows the love he had for his beloved dog and the pain she was in.

I know when I am in pain especially that of having a child I like to hold someone’s hand. I imagine that the puppy biting his

hand was something similar. At least that is the image that was provoked for me. Indeed, unless you have experienced this kind of loss yourself, you cannot truly understand. Even though there are those that may not have had this kind of loss, most of us possess sympathy and empathy. In this writing he is able to spark those feelings. This poem evokes emotions and links feeling to thinking (Clugston, 2012) I know he did for me and the memory of my “good dog”.