Dogs Like Us

Beginning Paragraph Humans domesticated dogs tens of thousands of years ago, when we were still hunters and gatherers. That’s why dogs love to take walks with us. They love to work beside us, and they feel abandoned when they must sit at home alone. But perhaps we also feel abandoned when dogs aren’t part of our lives. Thesis Statement In Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver suggests that dogs pervade every aspect of who we are, expressing our inner emotions and selves. She depicts dogs as extensions of all of her characters, but especially Codi.

Topic Sentence Like a dog, Codi bases her life on instinct. As a result, she makes many poor decisions. Codi constantly dashes from place to place to avoid her problems. Body Paragraphs The Greyhound bus, a fleet-footed canine symbol, brings Codi to Grace and takes her away again. Codi says, “I was soon packed up too and headed northeast on a Greyhound bus. In our divergent ways, I believe we were both heading home” (8). The Greyhound bus represents Codi’s natural instincts. She runs from place to place without a home. The bus reappears at the end of the story: Quotation from Source “The Greyhound was mostly empty, a dry gourd rolling across the desert, occasionally spilling out a seed or two in an inhospitable outpost” (313). The Greyhound becomes synonymous with Codi. She repeatedly describes herself as traveling through life and occasionally giving something to the places she visits. Codi also refers to her life as a barren desert, in part because she has lost her child and in part because she feels empty and void. Throughout the novel, she fails to realize the power and life she has. Transition In the end, Codi returns on a train instead of a Greyhound bus. A train is much more controlled than a Greyhound, following tracks laid in steel. This change contrasts Codi’s past life with her present life. In the past, Codi went wherever she wanted, directionless. In the present, she has found an ironclad direction. She knows where she belongs and is not afraid to return home. Thematic Connection The terrible loss she has suffered teaches Codi at last how to plot her own course.

Aside from the Greyhound bus, Codi is also symbolized by a living, breathing dog named Jack. Loyd’s dog Jack represents the underlying emotions and hopes of both his master and Codi. Codi first connects with Jack when she talks to him at the party: “ ‘You thinking about crashing this party?’ I asked the dog. It glanced up at me for a second, with a patient look, then fixed its gaze back on the crowd” (63). Codi would rather talk to Jack than anyone else at the party. Humans like to believe they are above common animals, but they really are not so different. Animals dream just as humans do, Loyd explains: “It’s the same with people. There’s nothing sad about it. People dream about what they do when they’re awake” (133). Animals help humans see themselves anew. Codi’s connection with Jack shows how both are on the periphery, at the party but not really part of it, wanting to join in but feeling minimized by the others there. Still, Jack belongs. He is part of the family, something Codi yearns for. Jack participates in the key events in the lives of Codi and Loyd, for example when they are together in Kinishba or when Codi meets Loyd’s family.

Jack represents Codi in other ways. He is half-coyote, half-dog—an awkward and unlikely mix who does not fit in anywhere. Codi also came from a mixed heritage. Her mother ran off to Illinois with Doc Homer, a social outsider. Codi therefore considers herself a kind of cross-breed and an underachieving runt, just like Jack. But also like Jack, she has a place in the world. Grace accepts Codi, and Loyd accepts Jack and Codi, wanting to be with both of them. Codi’s miscarriage only seems to draw them more closely together.

Codi also has a recurrent connection to full-blooded coyotes. She often remembers the coyote pups caught in the flood in Grace. Doc Homer recalls, “He hears Hallie shrieking in the background. They are both crying as if they are drowning themselves. Drowning pups” (21). The destiny of these pups is closely related to the fates of Codi and Hallie. Codi and Hallie do not save the pups because they would have to let one die. Similarly, Codi could not live without Hallie, using her as a crutch, but simultaneously degrading herself for this dependency. As time wears on, Codi realizes that one coyote can live without the others, just as she must live without Hallie. While Hallie’s death cripples Codi at first, she is able to push through it and understand her importance. At Hallie’s funeral, Codi finally understands the love and support that her hometown offers her: “Loyd was standing on one side of me, and Emelina on the other, and whenever I thought I might fall or just cease to exist, the pressure of their shoulders held me there” (327). Her whole life, Codi has had to stand on her own. This is the first time she has literally found out she doesn’t need to. Hallie’s death taught Codi that she could survive with others to lean on.

Ending Paragraph In Animal Dreams, canines represent the hidden side of people. Codi fails to save any of the drowning coyote pups because she can’t save them all, but then saves herself even after the death of Hallie. Flighty Codi arrives and flees on a Greyhound. When she is in Grace, she identifies most strongly with Jack, the half-dog, half-coyote. Not only do canines represent the hidden emotions of the main characters, but they also stand for the connection between humans and nature. Kingsolver presents the environmentalist message that humans cannot separate themselves from the living things around them. Humanity will not survive without nature. Dogs are so much like us that they are, in a way, us. They teach us who we are and help us to live.