Black Dogs

EN 202: Interpretive Reading

Student : Jan Bjerg

What are Black Dogs?

Black dogs is a term that is often used as a metaphor for depression. One of the most famous people to use the metaphor black dogs was Sir Winston Churchill. Some believe that Sir Winston Churchill came up with the expression himself, but many people say that the expression is much older than that. The expression black dogs can also be metaphors for fear and death. In Ian McEwen’s book Black Dogs, where some of the characters visit a concentration camp, and see the fall of the Berlin Wall, I would say that the expression covers all three, depression, fear and death.

Sir Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of Britain from 1940-1945 and again from1951 to 1955. Churchill suffered from depression for the most of his life, and struggled to hide the extend of his depression from his colleagues. He often talked to his gamily and friends about his black dogs which were a substitute word for depression. Maybe because Churchill was a much respected statesman and inspirational leader the term black dogs is generally associated with him. Although its origin is unknown many people believe that the expression is much older than Winston Churchill, in fact one of the earliest references is from poet Sir Walter Scott in 1826. There is also one from 1882 by Robert Louis Stevenson, but some think the expression is even older than that, but no matter how old it is, Churchill is probably the most famous person to have used the term black dogs for depression.

In the book Black Dogs by Ian McEwan two of the characters in the book, the narrator Jeremy and his wife to be Jenny Tremaine visits the Nazi concentration camp Majdanek. Majdanek Concentration camp on the outskirts of the city of Lublin in Poland was established in 1941. The camp began as a prisoner of war camp for Soviet soldiers. The first 2000 Soviet soldiers arrived in October 1941. Most of them were too weak to...