Black dogs Flashcards
Black dogs’ plot?
The narrator of this story is Jeremy who lost his parents when he was a child. He tries to substitute them with his parents-in-law June and Bernand Tremaine. Jeremy reconstructs their love story, their faith in communism and their encounter with the black dogs. Bernard is a rationalist, he believes in science and social progress whereas June has a religious view of life. They represent the opposite visions of the world
What’s Black Dogs’s style?
The novel combines two different narrative levels, one, in the first three parts deals with the present and the other one to 1946, the year of the meeting with the dogs.
What’s Black Dogs’ theme?
This novel is a meditation on the existence of evil and what the evil within man can bring to. The antidote to evil is redeeming power of love.
What are the black dogs?
The black dogs are the dogs the gestapo brought to French villages to intimidate its people. Though when the Germans left the dogs where left behind. After attacking june the dogs disappear though they come back at the end of the novel.
Why is past important?
Black dogs are still hunting Europe. For example during the fall of the Berlin Wall, a Turkish demonstrator was chased by Neo-nazis. The demon of nationalism is still alive. According to McEwan the intellectual’s task is to look critically at the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes. This is also what Jeremy tries to do in the novel.
