Live like a Dog Alone
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In the short story” Live Like a Dog Alone” by Fay Weldon he tells about a business women named Miriam. She is a businesswoman who has success on work. She always tries to keep a positive outlook. But the success has seriously consequences for her health. She has a heart condition. In a taxi from hospital, she meets the opposite of herself: a cabdriver who is bitter on life. He cannot look at life with a positive outlook. The title and the theme have a close connection. The loneliness in the short story has an enormous meaning for the two main characters. The reader realises that Miriam is lonely.
If you read between the lines, you can see that Miriam is a positive person who tries to cheer people up. Also her response to the cabdriver confirms the positive site.
” Try saying live like a lion, alone” or ” Live like a tigger alone”
.The cabdrivers loneliness and bitterness on life, is demonstrated in his answer to Miriam
” I have no-one, Miriam. You haft to believe me. I am no better than a dog.”
The cabdriver constantly, referrer his life to a dog. In his mind, a dog lives alone. Normally today we see the dog as the family/the humans best friend. The dog lives with people, and not alone. Under the driving, the streets are described as empty streets. The empty streets becomes symbolic and it is uncovering the loneliness. In the story they talk about relationships. When Miriam is asked if she lives alone, she says no and ads that she has a husband. As a reader we already know she is divorced and lives alone. Maybe it is because of her perfectionism that she says it. And in her mind, she only wants to date men of her own type. Maybe that is the reason why she lies. It becomes clear for us readers, that he is the opposite of her. She gets these thoughts that he should do something about himself, so he arent that dog alone, he keeps referring himself as. In the following lines we can conclude that the positives side turns around and becomes negative instead.
” Wash your neck,” she almost said” clean your nails, stop going through the red lights, take of that depressive sweater, put on a clean shirt and look cheerful.”
I will now look more closely to what Miriams health and the role of her personal life plays, compared to the theme. I also want to look at the title and try figure out the connection. If we read between the lines, we can see that Miriam has a heart condition. The hard condition plays a huge part of Miriams life. The reason for the heart condition is stress. She is really stressed at work. She does not do something about it. But her heart condition also hides the theme: loneliness
The title “Live, like a dog, Alone” is referred to the