Dogs as Companions in Novels - Katharine Munzer Rogers - October
27, 2011 A meditation upon man's best friend in fiction. Dogs
are our oldest and closest animal friends, and they occupy a
corresponding place in our literature. One of our oldest
literary works, The Odyssey, features an unforgettable scene in
which the hero reunites with his old hound, Argus. But it is
only after feelings toward pets became increasingly warm during
the eighteenth century that dogs became prominent as
personalized, individual characters. The long-suffering heroine
of Frances Burney d’Arblay’s The Wanderer (1814) saves herself
from rape by a couple of louts by making friends with their dog
– thus demonstrating her resourcefulness and knowledge of canine
psychology as well as the dog’s innocence and benevolent
propensity. In the final reckoning at the end of the novel,
d’Arblay makes a point of including the dog among the deserving
characters to be rewarded. Dogs really came into their own later
in the nineteenth century, when sev