Dog Days by Judy Budnitz
"Dog Days" by Judy Budnitz presents a harrowing narrative centered on a family facing the collapse of their societal structure amid an undefined national crisis. The story unfolds through the experiences of Lisa, a young woman whose family endures significant hardships, including power outages, food scarcity, and the mysterious disappearance of neighbors. As their environment deteriorates into a ghost town, the family's dynamics shift dramatically, particularly with the introduction of a peculiar creature, a man dressed as a dog, who becomes a constant companion for Lisa's family.
This creature embodies a complex relationship within the family, with Lisa's mother nurturing it while her father remains skeptical. As the family's situation becomes increasingly desperate, tensions rise, leading to a tragic climax where the father, in a moment of desperation, resorts to hunting the creature for food. The story's progression from February to the following February illustrates the gradual decline of normalcy, highlighting the characters' struggle to comprehend their rapidly changing reality. Ultimately, "Dog Days" examines themes of survival, identity, and the primal instincts that emerge when civilization falters, drawing parallels to classic dystopian literature.
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Dog Days by Judy Budnitz
First published: 1998
Type of plot: Dystopian, didactic
Time of work: The twenty-first century
Locale: A small town in the United States
Principal Characters:
Lisa , the narratorPat , andEliott , her teenage brothersHer mother Howard , her fatherMarjorie , her only friend, who moves awayPrince , a human dressed as a dog
The Story
"Dog Days" uses a third-person narrative from the perspective of Lisa, a young woman, to relate the story of a family caught up in an undefined national crisis. Over a single year, the family's standard of living declines drastically; they lack electricity, experience drastic food shortages, and have their neighbors disappear mysteriously. Soon they appear to be the only people remaining in town.
The unifying thread in this chaotic situation is a creature, presumably a human dressed as a dog, that ingratiates himself with members of the family, becoming their constant companion. Lisa's mother scavenges in the trash seeking food for this man/dog who sits up and begs, rolls over, and licks the hands that feed it. Even when the mother cannot find food, the dog, Prince, remains with the family.
Initially, the mother defends the dog; the father eschews it. Lisa's brothers, Pat and Eliott, sell their clothing to buy drugs and retreat into their basement bedroom, from which they exclude Lisa. They do drugs and leaf through old issues of Playboy by moonlight because their electricity has failed. They do not go to school because, in April, the schools close. They boys rejoice in the freedom this closure gives them, but soon they become bored and seek jobs. The town, however, is clearing out. No one is hiring. They are left to their pot smoking and prurient reading.
Lisa's father, Howard, goes hunting with his shotgun but finds little to hunt. Lisa never reports that he brings anything home from his hunting expeditions. The family is short of food, but Howard is powerless to do anything to relieve his family's hunger. Ever the realist, he realizes that the dog his wife is nurturing is actually a human dressed as a dog. Because he discourages his wife's ministrations to the dog, she carries most of them out secretly, feeding the creature behind his back. She accepts the man/dog as a dog because that is what it wants to be. She supports its right to be whatever it desires.
The man/dog behaves like a dog. It acts as dogs do—it sits up and begs, rolls over, and barks. It sleeps curled up on the porch. Howard will not permit it to enter the house. It smells and has fleas, some of which cause pink bumps to appear on Lisa's legs, but she does not tell her mother that the man/dog has given her fleas. Her brothers joke that she should not let the dog get too close to her lest it impregnate her.
The family's world is obviously collapsing around it. The town becomes a ghost town, but the family apparently has no notion of why its neighbors have left. The family has no overt warnings to spur it into fleeing. Its members can neither understand nor accept what is happening but seem powerless to prevent it. When the electricity fails, they sit and stare at the dark television screen until finally Howard smashes it.
The story is told in sequential order by months, from February to the following February. In the course of a year, the mother moves from accepting the man/dog as a dog, as it wishes, to denying it is a dog when her husband, desperate for food, hunts it as though it were the animal that he has earlier denied it was. Finally, he shoots the creature for food. The mother cries out, proclaiming that the animal is a man. She has been reduced to feeding her family on salads made from grass that cause Lisa to throw up. Lisa finds a bottle of vitamins. She takes some, and they give her a stomachache.
As the story ends, Howard has shot the man/dog. The father and the boys fall on the dead animal. They snarl, much as dogs snarl. Their situation has reduced them to an animalistic state. "Dog Days," like William Golding's The Lord of the Flies (1954), explores what happens to people when the major aspects of civilization disappear.