Stylistic Analysis A Dark Brown Dog by Steven Crane

A Dark-Brown Dog by Steven Crane is a story about a little dog, a young boy and their relationship. This young boy was leaning against a fence one day when this little dark-brown dog was walking along the sidewalk. A dark brown dog was a story, which told about the unfortunate dog and story about a friendship relation between a child and a dog. I think that the story is very heartwarming. We can see from the story that the dog always got a bad treatment from the family, but the dog still stayed at the house because the dog felt that he has found his true friend there. The author wrote the story to show toward the readers about loyalty, friendship and faithfulness between the dog and the child.
Unfortunately, this story had a really sad ending. It was terrible. I could not expect that boy's father did such cruel thing.

Stephen Crane began writing at the age of four and had published several articles by the age of 16. He has liked writing since he was very young. Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the tradition Realism on as well as early examples of American naturalism and impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. Stephen Crane’s fiction is typically categorized as representative of Naturalism, Realism, Impression or a mixture of the three. Stylistically, Crane’s writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialect and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. When the Stephen Crane wrote a dark brown dog short story, it represented their characteristic, which showed naturalism. The language in a dark brown dog was natural or used denotative sentences. Even so, intention of the story could be understood by the reader without thinking so hard, but Stephen Crane used a lot of words, I mean that he used uncommon word. Diction of the story seems difficult for the readers who aren’t from the native country. But, the positive side is the readers can increase their vocabularies. And also, the story had frighten substantive by showing the strictness which was done by the family to the dog; moreover, the story described how suffering the dog is, and the part when the dog fell his tears can make the readers feel eerie.

A dark brown dog was a story which told about the unfortunate dog and story about a friendship relation between a child and a dog. I think that the story is very heartwarming. We can see from the story that the dog always got a bad treatment from the family, but the dog still stayed at the house because the dog felt that he has found his true friend there. The author wrote the story to show toward the readers about loyalty, friendship and faithfulness between the dog and the child. Here, I can see that the author liked dog, when the first time Stephen Crane wrote a poem, the poem was about a dog. In a dark brown dog, Stephen Crane wanted to show that a dog is an animal that is very loyal, and opinion that a dog is a friendship of human is true.

Stephen Crane wrote a dark brown dog short story used third-person-omniscient. The author or Stephen Crane became a person who knew everything, he could described what several characters see, hear, or think as well as events at which no characters is present. We can detect it from pronoun which is used, in the story used “he” to represent the child and the dog,, and in here the author acted that he knew everything.

As we know that Stephen Crane is an American. I think that a dark brown dog that he wrote had a setting in America. If we take a look the story, the events happened in different places. First, some events happened in the street (when the dog and the child met in the very firs time, and when they played together). Second, some events happened in a room or inside a house (when the family did some bad treatment to dog, did something violent to the dog in the kitchen). Third, some events happened in pavement (when the child in the first time saw the dog, when the child found the dog died or when the dog died.). But the whole events were in America.

Now, we will talk about theme or central idea in a dark brown dog short story. If read this short story, at the first time what the story want to tell about is the meeting of the dog and the child, then, the story tell about the faithfulness of the dog when the dog stayed among the child and the family, and then story tell about friendship relation between the dog and the child when the dog was treated violently by the family, until the dog died. I can conclude that, the theme or central idea of the story is friendship between human and dog and a faithfulness of a dog towards his master.

We can see that there so many physical conflicts here or it belongs to external conflict, between the family (especially the father) and the dog. In other hand, there is internal conflict, conflict in the dog itself (when he felt so suffer, cried a song of infinite lowliness and despair, but he knew that he couldn’t leave the child). But the major conflict here is between the family and the dog. Main problem comes from the family who didn’t like the dog; thus, they did something cruel to the dog. If the family liked the dog, there weren’t problems and conflicts in this story. Then, we can see the climax of the story is when the father got drunk and he was not too aware, he revealed his anger to the dog like he was on the top of his anger. He knocked the dog down with a heavy coffeepot. We know that because of that, he dog yelling in supreme astonishment and fear. Imagine that we were the dog, how pity we are. It was not enough for the father whom had made the dog so suffer, even the dog had screamed by full of fear in him. The father threw the small body of the dog throw the window. It was very cruel for the dog, but the father didn’t care. At the time, he child see what the father did to the dog, and the child cried and screamed, tried to avoid the father did that. We can imagine, the situation must be strained and full of tears.

Well, we know that there are some characters in this story; the characters are the dog the child, father, mother, (the family) and the neighbor. They divided into two kinds, major and minor characters. Major characters are the dog and the child, and the others belong to the minor characters. But we can see that the dog is the most character, which always rose in most of events. So the dog, which had a very small body, soft and weak body, is the dominant in this story. We can imagine that the dog was a very unlucky animal, a pity animal, a suffer animal.

Although the dog was very unfortunate but he felt very lucky met the child. The child and the dog had a very close relationship. We called it “friendship”. The dog felt that the child was his close friend. They had the chemistry at the very first time they met. That the reasons why the dog chose to stay alive with the child and the cruel family. And as we know why the family (especially the father) hated the dog so much. The family looked the dog as something unimportant and disgusting thing. Different with the child who treated and guided the dog well.

The Small Brown Dog by American Naturalism / Impressionist writer Stephen Crane. Crane uses the simple language of a primary reader for the title of this work.  This offers a glimpse of the baseness of the tale to be unfolded. Crane intimates this tale is not that of the complexities of adult behaviour but rather the primal view of the world of a child. The genre for The Dark Brown Dog is  a tragedy in the classical sense of Aristotle’s Poetics and is written in the form of a short story. The tone of this short story is both one of the flâneur offering a strolling glimpse of society that is the style of American Naturalism dispersed with moments of irony. 

[flâneur] “Here the child uttering loud cries came valiantly forth like a knight. The father of the family paid no attention to these calls of the child, but advanced with glee upon the dog. Upon being knocked down twice in swift succession, the latter apparently

gave up all hope of escape. [irony] “But the father was in a mood for having fun, and it occurred to him that it would be a fine thing to throw the dog out the window”
Now, when we read the story, we will find irony. As I said before that the dog and the child each other had considered that they were a friendship and they had an interchange of friendly even In the very first time. I believe that the dog loved the child so much and so the child was. The dog expected the love also came from the family too. But, the dog had to be disappointed; the fact had proved that the family rejected his coming. His coming was unexpected. So, we can see the irony here, what the dog expected toward the family and did not happened to him. What the dog wanted was different with the fact. Thus, the dog had to accept the bitter fact. The dog was accepted to be tortured by the father and family. The dog hid the fact from the child. Crane uses a variety of figurative language throughout The Dark Brown Dog.

Simile: “Here the child uttering loud cries, came valiantly forth like a knight” and

“In appearance she was like a gagged prisoner.

Personification:  “At the same time with his eyes and his ears he offered up a small prayer”. Irony:  “But the father was in a mood for having fun, and it occurred to him that it would be a fine thing to throw the dog out the window”.

In the end of the story, the dog closed his sufferings. The dog died. The father killed the dog. May be, it is good for the dog itself, by that way, his sufferings was break. There were no paste-up, or a throw thing to him again. The dog was death. This was not good for the child, the child felt very sad. He lost a friend that was very faithful to him. The child cried looking at a death body of the dark brown dog.

When, read the short story, we can know that the author wanted to say something to the readers. In this story, the author’s wanted to make the readers know that a dog (an animal) also had a heart, had a feeling. In this story the author described the feeling of the dog when the family did something bad to him well. The author can bring the readers as if the readers were the dog itself. So, in this case the author had been success to bring that message to the readers.

Well, when I read this story, actually at the first time I could be understand in meaning sense of the story. I could know that it was about the friendship relation between the dog and the child. But, to know about the detail of the story, I, as a no expert reader (not from native country) felt difficult to conceive the story. The diction, which the author chosen is difficult, because the words are uncommon. Maybe, because the story belongs to classic short story, so diction, which used is complicated words and rich of lexis. Besides that, as told at first, the author liked using theme as fear, spiritual and isolation, the author had been success bring the readers to feel afraid and eerie; in addition, the author didn’t clear to explain how close the child and the dog; thus, sense of closeness between the dog and the child was not enough to make the readers lachrymose. And so, the story will be better if there is dialog at least just one dialog, because it can make the story more life. It just my personal point of view whom like existence of dialog. But, it is not the big problem, it just suggestion. Also, the style of Stephen Crane told about vivid, and the story also tells about the real live. The story can happened in our real live; particularly in America is very possible. Overall, the story is good and acceptable.