Explication of Dog's Death by John Updike

Joel Bromaghim

ENG 132-T6

Professor Shake

July 19, 2012

“Dog’s Death” by John Updike

“Dog’s Death” by John Updike is a narrative poem written in open form about a family pet that dies unexpectedly and the family’s reaction to the death. Updike does use some rhyme in his poem but in whole, the poem lacks a fixed structure. As I begin reading the poem I am immediately placed in a solemn state as a dog lover. The title of the poem immediately sets the tone of the poem and Updike does not stray from this morbid foreshadowing. The narrator of the poem is the family’s father and he tells the story of the loss of a pet, a puppy, in a narrative with use of flashforwarding. This is shown from beginning the poem with the first four lines using descriptions of the pet as a puppy and an assumption that she was kicked or hit by a car, to then illustrating how the puppy died physically, then proceeding to the actual account of the day the puppy died, and then concluding with the family’s reaction of the death.

The poem is 20 lines long and uses five quatrains. Updike uses rhyming throughout the poem but does not follow a fixed rhyming scheme or meter. The narrator uses very graphic language to describe the death of the dog. An example, blood was filling her skin and had endured the shame of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor, gives the reader a very good although unpleasant visual of what the dog went through. Updike does not rely on symbolism to convey visual images in this poem and instead uses this more direct depiction of the puppy’s last hours to convey the setting and mood. In this regard the poem is very easy to read and understand.

Updike begins the poem by immediately explaining that the family was unaware of the puppy’s injuries or how they had been sustained. Updike writes:

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.

Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn

To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor

And to win, wetting...