Short Story Assignment

The short story I read was called "The Dark Brown Dog" by Stephen Crane. The story was about a young boy and a small brown dog. In the story the dog stumbles upon the boy as he is out in his neighbourhood, the dog was friendly and the boy began to pet the dog. Unexpectedly, the young boy hit the dog on the head for no reason. Later in the story the same aggressive action took place toward the dog when the boy lashed out at the dog to make him walk, when he dragged the dog up the stairs and when the father was throwing objects at the small dog. The story ending was horrific when the father of the young boy swung the dog around his head and then dropped him out of a window of a five story tenement building. The ending was not very shocking, although still very sad. I chose this story because the title and the introduction sentence caught my attention. The topic of the story was about a dog, and considering that I am animal crazy, I knew it was something I would enjoy to read. In the story I believe the protagonist is the dog. The story line is about a dog being abused, therefore I believe the protagonist is the dog. In the story the dog is described as being a small dog, around the age of 4-5 months old. From the description in the story it seems as though the dog is a stray and does not belong to anyone. I also believe that there is an antagonist in the story. An antagonist is a character that creates problem, therefore I think the young boy is the antagonist because he is creating the problem of abusing the dog in the story. The boy is young, stressed, and abusive. I believe that stress, aggression issues, and boredom motivated the young boy to act the way he did in the story. The conflict in this story is how aggressive the father and the young boy are towards the small brown dog. In the story, the boy realizes that abusing the dog is wrong and he began to stop hurting the dog, but the father showed very abusive actions toward the dog throughout the whole story. The aggressive issue between both characters was resolved in the young boy, but not in the father. The story takes place in a city setting and the young boy lives in a tenement building. I believe that setting plays an important role in the story ending, because in the end the dog is thrown out of a five story tenement building. The setting of the story helped to describe more about where the dog and the boy live and how the lower class living conditions could have played a role on how both characters act in the story. For example, the dog seems to be a stray in the run down city neighbourhood and acts as if he is looking for love and attention from the boy even though the boy was mean to the dog in the beginning. The mood of the story is depressing, when the boy and father abuse the dog I get a depressing feeling. The theme of the story is about domestic violence. In the story it seems as though the young boy was abused at some point, and now the young boy shows abusive actions toward the dog. The story is saying that when abuse begins in a family, other members of the family begin to learn abuse and start to show the same actions. The cycle of abuse continues, much like it is in this story. This is the story "The Dark Brown Dog" by Stephen Crane.