A Dark Brown Dog

“A Dark Brown Dog” is an allegorical story about post-Civil War, Jim Crow-era America and the deeply rooted power imbalances that plagued society. Crane uses the poor treatment and tragic fate of the dog to illustrate the persistent presence of violence for newly emancipated Black Americans in the South. However, despite his evident criticism of the callous treatment of vulnerable people, Crane issues his criticism through his own racist lens.

In an allegorical sense, each main character in the short story plays a basic metaphorical role. Read more straightforwardly, the “dark-brown” (Paragraph 2) dog represents recently emancipated Black Americans. The child and his family represent the white ruling class. The child, as the dog’s sometimes-protector and sometimes-abuser, reflects in part those among the white ruling class with egalitarian intentions. At times, they rise to the defense of Black Americans—but their quality of care is spotty at best. Worse, their efforts to defend Black Americans are marred by their own abusive behavior toward them. The father, with his tyrannical behavior, reflects the white Americans most entrenched in Southern society and politics, their resources and networks giving them the capacity to inflict their will and harm on others. Black Americans cannot appease them and are socially and legally discouraged from standing up to their abuse. This reading ties into the theme of Hierarchical Power Structures as Inherently Abusive, as it emphasizes the role of violence in aiding each figure with subjugating those they see as below them.

Read more broadly, the story’s allegory comments on power structures, generational cycles, and institutionalized abuse. The dog represents not only recently emancipated Black Americans but also The Mentality of Enslavement—that is, Black Americans’ submissiveness, as perceived by Crane. The child and his family represent not only the white ruling class but also the forces that perpetuate their power in society—that is, the abuses that enable subjugation. The child is the next generation, the new age arriving, but the dog’s fate under the child’s rule is hardly a good one. Following the father’s example, the child abuses the dog. The child sees value in the animal only when it makes a final, ambitious bid to please him, and the manner in which the child claims ownership of it marks the child’s attempt at seizing some modicum of power for himself: “He made a swift, avaricious charge and seized the rope” (12) then “dragged his captive” (13) home. The father is the status quo: He represents the South’s deeply engrained cultural and societal norms, which include institutional power resting in the hands of white Americans. He sits at the top of the hierarchy, and the dog lives and dies, literally, based on his fickle whims.

Crane leans into the Naturalism movement in this story, using a detached and impersonal approach to amplify the bleakness of the conclusion and, in turn, the sense of the emotional mélange associated with the plight of recently emancipated Black Americans. The small cast of characters—the dog, child, and father, as well as the supporting characters—are true to reality, as Crane perceives it. There are no supernatural or mystical characteristics or experiences present. In addition, also in line with Naturalism, Crane takes a determinist attitude toward the dog’s fate that hints at the indifference of the universe toward the animal’s innocence. Similarly, the complete lack of dialogue alienates the reader, removing a common pathway to understanding, connecting, and identifying with characters. Though we know that the characters speak—the boy calls to the dog (Paragraph 4) and “the parent demanded to know what the blazes they were making the kid howl for” (Paragraph 16)—there are no quotation marks, explicit dialogue, or verbal exchanges. Heightening this detachment and impersonality is the third-person narration, the emotion of which is largely limited to light use of wit during the most violent scenes. The narrator gives some minor insight into the thought processes or emotional state of the characters—such as with the father’s “joy” (Paragraph 30) at realizing he could harm the dog or the dog’s “devotion” (Paragraph 25) to the boy. However, overall, the characters’ inner lives are absent.

This approach to telling the story has two main effects. First, in a practical sense, it strengthens the notion of the characters as allegorical. By severing the reader from the characters as individuals, Crane casts them more as symbols. That the characters are nonetheless “gray” in nature, possessing both “good” and “bad” character traits, serves to enrich the allegory. Second, in a thematic sense, this approach speaks to Crane’s perception of the role of violence in the structures around him. Namely, Crane explores two important themes related to violence: first, Hierarchical Power Structures as Inherently Abusive and, second, The Inescapability of Institutional Violence. In both cases, Cane’s detached, impersonal style casts the violence taking place as mundane and ordinary, furthering commentary on how institutional racism and abusive power structures have been normalized.