Dog's Death

Dog’s Death by John Updike
By Shelby Harper
ENG 125 Introduction to Literature
Sabine Reljic
March, 28 2014

Dog’s Death by John Updike
Death is hard to put into words unless someone has been through the loss themselves. The poem “Dog’s Death” by John Updike speaks about loss of a family member, his beloved pet. Updike tells a story about his pet being part of the family, as one of his children.
I chose to read John Updike because I was engaged in the words and could feel his pain of his dog dying. I have a love for dogs and every word I could see, feel of every moment. I can feel his pain because I too have lost my dogs during my life. Death is hard to except but it sometimes is necessary. Loss is a deep feeling and no one can understand unless they have lost a loved one. Updike sets the tone by stating “She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car” (Updike, line 1). Updike gives you the image of being kicked or hit by a car.
As stated before, no one can understand what it really means to lose a pet unless you have experienced it before, I have lost my dogs. I took my dog to the vet to have surgery that was supposed to have been simple. But on the day I was to bring her home, she started having seizures and never recovered from them. I then had to make the hardest decision of putting her down. John Updike said, “Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared” (line 15-16).
I chose the formalist approach to analyze this poem because the author used figurative language like metaphor is used to set the mood and theme by using words like death, love and loss in lines thirteen through sixteen. The formalist approach method, “Every writer chooses particular literary tools to create a representation of something that exists in his or her imagination” (Clugston, 2012). Updike, stimulates a person’s imagination to relate with this poem “Dog’s Death.”
John Updike plotted out a narrative poem speaking about the beginning of potting training the middle and then the end of the dog’s life. He employs emotion throughout the poem of trying to get the dog to play when it did not feel up to it at all. “As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin and her heart was learning to lie down forever” (Updike, line 7 and 8). Clugston stated, a word picture in which two things are imaginatively compared, showing how each resembles the other. 2010 This statement showed that the dog’s owner did not realize how serious she was injured. Some dog owners are in denial of a loved one being sick and try to make them feel better by playing.
“In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried to bite my hand and died” (Updike, 1953). This statement shows the love of his dog by holding her in his lap to the vet and the pain she was in and wanting to hold her master’s hand when she died. Updike, pulls the reader in to show that anyone who loves dogs or don’t love dogs can show sympathy or even empathy.
Conclusion, I still think no one can understand the loss of a dog or loved one unless they themselves have had that loss. John Updike speaks so passionate about the stages of life he has had with his dog and shows how deeply he cared. John Updike sparks emotions in this poem “Dog’s Death” of love, death, and loss.

Reference
Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
"Dog's Death" from COLLECTED POEMS 1953–1993 by John Updike, copyright © 1993 by John Updike. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.