Religion: Life and Updike Essay

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Ryan Phillips
10/27/08
OCE Death
Death in Poetry Dogs Death and The fish are two poems that I used to compare because even though the deaths of the two animals were different, I feel they both wanted the same thing. For example, the dog in Dogs Death wanted to die peacefully by the newspaper, and the fish wanted to die peacefully in the sea. Both poems relate to an animal nearing its death and its really up to the reader to decide if that animal truly wanted to live or not.

In the poem Dogs Death Updike explains how a young dog was either beaten by its owner or ran over by a car we do not know for sure, all we know is that the dog is in bad condition. Just by the title of this poem we know that the dog is not going to make it. In the first stanza Updike says “ too young to know much, she was beginning to learn.” I feel that this is important in the poem because it shows that even though this family knew the dog was probably not going to survive, they decided to potty train it anyway. I think it’s important to realize the setting that Updike chose for the day the dog died. The third stanza starts off “Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed and sent to school,” that is like any other typical day of the week, it’s not a sad dark rainy day or anything. And that is usually how it happens in real life. In the last stanza it really shows the character of this dog and it makes me feel bad for it. Updike explains how the dog had diarrhea in the middle of the night and it dragged itself across the floor to the newspaper. This shows that even though this dog was in its last night of life, it still had the discipline and heart to make its way to the newspaper. This could be Updike telling us to live our lives to the fullest and be grateful for what we have. Unlike Dogs Death, The fish poem to me is not as depressing. This poem can be interpreted in different ways. One can say that it was the right thing to return the fish
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