25 pages • 50 minutes read
Stephen CraneA Dark Brown Dog
Fiction | Short Story | Middle Grade | Published in 1901A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
The Child
The protagonist of the story is the unnamed child, referred to simply and consistently as “the child.” Very little detail about the child’s age, size, or appearance is given. The child is small, surmised by the fact that the dog is described as “little” (Paragraph 3) but still able to potentially “overturn the child” (Paragraph 4). It is also likely that he is between three and five years old, based on his “toddl[ing]” (Paragraph 34) and the mention of his mobility on steps: “[H]is size compelled him to go downstairs backward” (Paragraph 34). Throughout the text, the child becomes increasingly attached to and protective of the dog despite simultaneously abusing it. When upset, the child seeks comfort from the dog, “often crawl[ing] under the table [to] lay his small distressed head on the dog’s back” (Paragraph 23). The pair have a complicated relationship, wherein the child acts as both a guardian, or a “safeguard” (Paragraph 20), and as a bully, or a “terrible potentate” (Paragraph 26).
Allegorically, the child represents in part the white Americans who, at least in theory, were more supportive of and open to the recent emancipation of Black Americans. Accordingly, the child exhibits many dichotomies: He is loving and cruel, powerful and impotent, protective and victimizing. The text suggests that the child does not love the dog so much as he views the dog as an object. For the child, the dog is, at most, a passive entity that serves to bring the child a sense of control, relief, or joy—whatever the child needs in the moment. The dog is an outlet, a source of entertainment. This attitude is especially clear in the moment the child chooses to take ownership of the dog. It is not a moment of acceptance, but of greed and abduction: The child “made a swift, avaricious charge and seized the rope” (Paragraph 12). The child explicitly objectifies the dog in this moment: He “suddenly saw him [the dog] to be a valuable thing” (Paragraph 12). These behaviors hint at the hypocrisy of those claiming to celebrate emancipation while, in fact, objectifying and abusing Black Americans in much the same way as the counterparts they criticized.
The child’s abuse of the dog also exemplifies the theme of Hierarchical Power Structures as Inherently Abusive. The child is the lowest human in the hierarchy of power within the family. For the child, the dog therefore poses a rare opportunity for the child to claim power and authority. The child’s abuse of the dog, in turn, indicates two aspects of this theme. First, it hints at the perpetuation of abuse—the child, having learned these behaviors from the father, now reenacts them on his own helpless victim. In the context of the allegory, this pattern suggests a grim outlook for Black Americans, even as the next generation of white Americans makes claims of supporting a more just future. Second, the child’s abuse of the dog, which the child seems to execute with increasing zeal, also indicates the strong relationship between power and violence. Within a hierarchical power structure, it is natural for all but the dog to strive to rise in status. The wife and husband fight. The child fights with the family, asserting himself as he’s able. Within the hierarchy, the humans are always striving to climb. Therefore, when the child perceives an opportunity to gain undeniable power over another, he seizes on it—even though the victim is only a dog. In the context of the allegory, this behavior reflects the striving within society to never fall into the lowest level. Some white Americans may support emancipation to an extent; however, Crane suggests that their instinct is ultimately to keep Black Americans beneath them.
The Dark-Brown Dog
The other protagonist, the dog, is also nameless, consistently described simply as “little [and] dark brown” (Paragraph 2). When the child first encounters the dog, the dog has “a short rope […] dragging from his neck” (Paragraph 3) that he sometimes trips on. The dog is friendly, approaching the child as soon as the child puts out a hand. The dog also warmly welcomes the child’s focus, acting “enthusiastic” and “gleeful” (Paragraph 4) when receiving attention. It is also suggested that the dog, while small, has the potential to enact possibly threatening change, as at the end of the dog and child’s first interaction, the dog “threatened to overturn the child” (Paragraph 4).
Perhaps the dog’s most salient character traits are his humility, forgiveness, and optimism, though these traits ultimately lead to his demise. When the child strikes the dog at the end of their first encounter, the dog grieves the attack: He feels “wounded […] to the heart” (Paragraph 5) and filled with “despair” (Paragraph 5). However, the dog immediately assumes a submissive pose. He rolls onto his back, holding up his paws, and makes eye contact with the boy. It is this submissiveness and eagerness to please that ultimately wins the boy’s affection and attention back. This vicious cycle repeats itself again and again over the course of the story, with the dog internalizing the physical and verbal abuse. He assumes “that he had committed some grave crime” (Paragraph 6) that justifies the continued maltreatment. There are intermittent and fleeting moments where the dog attempts to resist those in power, such as when he makes “willing efforts” (Paragraph 13) to avoid being dragged upstairs, but he is ultimately at the mercy of the child and the child’s family.
The dog represents newly emancipated Black Americans in the United States, especially in the South, who Crane views as still profoundly subjugated on every level. Crane is accurate in observing, through his allegory, that many institutional and social obstacles enforced the exclusion of Black Americans from gaining any meaningful political power. The symbol of the rope around the dog’s neck reflects these obstacles, as well as the many costs of enslavement that newly emancipated people had to contend with, such as lack of economic stability, lack of education, and lack of political representation. The Inescapability of Institutional Violence is evident in this sense. However, Crane’s own racism is also evident in his depiction of newly emancipated Black Americans as a submissive animal, especially as he depicts white Americans as humans in comparison. The dog’s persistent prayers, offered up to the humans, comprise a motif that supports the racist theme of The Mentality of Enslavement. That is, the dog’s innate dependence on humans for kindness and care reflects Crane’s belief in Black Americans’ (possibly innate) inability to seize control of their own lives. The dog, in short, is at best a condescending depiction of newly emancipated Black Americans.
The Father
The father is both the least-present and the most-impactful character of “A Dark Brown Dog,” the antagonist whose selfish impulsiveness and unchecked power lead to his murder of the dog. Despite the fact that he is not described in the text in great detail, he is the catalyst for the dog’s adoption into the home, as well as his literal expulsion from it. The father has an ever-present temper that fluctuates in severity. His motivations are often malicious—he agrees to allow the dog to stay simply to frustrate the rest of the family. There are hints of domestic abuse: “[T]he father quelled a fierce rebellion of his wife” (Paragraph 18). There are also blatant descriptions of substance misuse: “[T]he father of the family got quite exceptionally drunk” (Paragraph 28). True to family dynamics of the time, the father holds the top position in the family’s power hierarchy: He is “the head of the family” (Paragraph 30). In the context of the allegory, the father is representative of white people’s often unchecked power and cruelty toward oppressed groups.
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