A Dark Brown Dog

The rope around the dog’s neck is a symbol representing the more institutional side of the violence that Black Americans faced at the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th century. It recalls, in part, the horror of lynchings, or violent attacks on Black Americans that often ended in hangings. It also recalls the far too recent effects of enslavement. Simultaneously, it offers a visual for the effects of the legal and systematic efforts to repress Black Americans via Jim Crow laws.

Accordingly, the rope hampers the dog’s movement: “occasionally [the dog] trod upon the end of it and stumbled” (Paragraph 3). Similarly, the rope leaves the dog vulnerable to further subjugation. It’s what allows the child to make the dog “his captive” (Paragraph 13). Given its connections to the above obstacles, the rope is an ever-present reminder of the “otherness” of the dog and of Black Americans. This otherness, which situates both parties at the bottom of the hierarchy of power, proves to be the end of them. The dog’s brief moment of panic on the steps, as the child drags him toward “a grim unknown” (Paragraph 13), proves to foreshadow the fate to come.