{"id":2003,"date":"2025-02-07T17:36:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T17:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2025-02-07T17:36:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T17:36:54","slug":"the-dogs-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/02\/07\/the-dogs-warning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dog’s Warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as pet-dogs usually are, looked up at him sharply, shrank away from his outstretched hand, whined, shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. It was scarcely possible that he could have been put out by such a trifle as a dog\u2019s reception of him, but I observed, nevertheless, that he walked away towards the window very suddenly. Perhaps his temper is irritable at times. If so, I can sympathise with him. My temper is irritable at times too.\u201d (133)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This passage stuck out to me as it is the second time this dog is mentioned, although both are just brief. I believe it is the companion of Miss Farlie, as earlier in the novel Hartwrite refers to it as \u201cthe pet companion of all her walks\u201d (92). Dogs are often symbols of loyalty. This dog shows itself to be loyal to Miss Fairlie as not being friendly towards Sir Percival, a man whom Miss Farlie also does not show warmth to. Sir Percival reaches out to the dog as an extension of trust, but the dog does not reciprocate and instead follows this act by hiding. This dog is also characterized as scared and lesser than, while he is the only creature who is properly understanding Sir Percival\u2019s intentions. While the reader already has a negative impression of him so far, this furthers the narrative that Sir Percival is going to be an antagonist in the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gilmore also claims to be observant, yet seems to not realize the suspicious maneuver of Sir Percival to the windows, he instead thinks this must be due to irritability. This movement of his is also a slight slip of the facade that he has been putting on. He insists that he has nothing to hide and up until this point has exuded confidence. This slip, although it goes right over Gilmore\u2019s head, alludes to the reader that he is hiding something despite no human being able to pick up on it yet. This theme furthers the \u201creading between the lines\u201d narrative that the book is doing. Just as the reader can discern Sir Percival\u2019s hidden intentions through small clues, this scene suggests that the characters themselves must learn to \u201cread between the lines\u201d to uncover hidden truths themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as pet-dogs usually are, looked up at him sharply, shrank away from his outstretched hand, whined, shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. It was scarcely possible that he could have been put out by such a trifle as a dog\u2019s reception of him, but I observed, nevertheless, that … Continue reading The Dog’s Warning<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5016,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5016"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}