Analysis of "Dog's Death"
Uploaded by kingpin07 on Dec 13, 2006
(a/n) - I understnad this essay should be under poetry, yet I can not seem to get the computer to understand that my essay is more than one paragraph!!!..help!!??!!??!!?? please!!
Numerous facts are found in the course of analyzing “Dog’s Death” by John Updike.
Important information about the poem and the author can be discovered by closely examining key details. For example, where the narrator refers to certain characters as the children and states, “my wife,” it is revealed that the speaker is a male, a husband, and a father. Furthermore, the speaker’s quick, responsive actions resulting from the knowledge of the dog’s ill condition unveil his loving and caring values. Also evidenced by his immediate concern and total devotion of attention to the suffering puppy. Finally, where the speaker states his display of affection towards the dog by stroking her warm fur while she sits in his lap, the strong and masculine, yet gentle and usually hidden sensibility of the husband is displayed.
This strong yet forbidden sensibility that the husband holds is also shown by the tone of the poem. At the beginning stanzas of the poem, the descriptions are very sympathetic. Yet, as the poem progresses, more reminiscent and praising diction is used by the speaker, such as “warm,” and “love.” This implies that the more the speaker remembers the lost life, the more emotionally involved he becomes, realizing just how innocent and precious the puppy was.
The heightening emotion of both the narrator and the reader as the poem progresses is noticeable in the rhyme of the poem. At first, no or very few words rhyme, and with very little intensity. For example, the second stanza’s most noted rhyme is between liver and forever, which only contain similar endings. Yet, in the forth stanza, rhyming combinations, such as “fur” and “her,” along with “tears” and “disappeared,” are present. This pattern coincides with the increasing amount of emotion and involvement the author and reader feel. Thus, the more extensive rhyme scheme emphasizes the intense and growing personal feeling that the poem elicits.
Consequently, it is obvious that each individual element in a poem employs a meaning and holds a purpose.