Dogs of March by Ernest Hebert

¶ … Dogs of March by Ernest Hebert

Hebert tries hard, I think, to depict the lives of the native rural denizens -- the Elmans and their friends -- as realistically as possible. What are the characteristics of their lives? What are their values, especially their attitude toward their land and nature? How do you think we are supposed to feel about them -- sympathetic? Are they romanticized in any ways? What effects do they experience from the changes that are happening around them? Can you tell if Hebert's sympathy lies with the natives or the newcomers?

Set in New England the Dogs of March by Ernest Herbert, is a novel about the American Dream giving an emotional drama of characters that live simple lives and depict the common day-to-day turmoil faced by people and the effect that this turmoil has on others. Presented in the quaint hills of New Hampshire the story is a conceptual piece of art with black humor as its main technique which presents Howard Elman as the main character for and to whom nothing in life is fair.

The main character Howard Elman is to some an anti-hero and to others just a man struggling to make his life worth living. His thoughts are jumbled and his personality a reflection of his environment where birches and bullets and junk and material wealth survive side by side. The main theme of the novel is the conflict between the character and the change that is taking place within his world. As progress takes place new people enter his 'world' and breed resentment as they symbolize a class conflict that cannot be easily accepted. The American Dream is coming true for some who have "college degrees and big bank accounts" while others resist the change to live life as they have done for the years past.

In the past, when agriculture was a way of life, people in the U.S. And beyond lived a life that was based on nature. They believed in human emotions, neighborly respect, religion, superstition and all the forces of nature that kept loneliness, secularism and individuality at bay. The concept presented by most writers of the changing times was a romantic dialogue that gave humans of the time a conscience seen missing from the modern age.

Keeping this in mind we read The Dogs of March and believe that the lives of the characters are being dramatized and presented in the best light possible. Yet, reading between the lines we see that the picture is not as clear as first believed for there is a darker side to the quaint life being led that is satirized by the author.

The basic story of the novel is based on the theme of a local manufacturing firm being closed as a blue-collar loses their American Dream. As the firm closes we see the Howard Elman's family break apart. He loses his farm as the educated immigrants that enter the area are better equipped to handle the technological changes that are taking place and implementing them in the society. As the family deteriorates Herbert outlines the thoughts and feelings of Elman who is compared to a small deer who is chased in the woods by house pets and left to his own devices to survive. The comparison seems to underline the helplessness of the character. A new born deer of spring is helpless for weeks depending on the parents for survival and we can imagine the fate of the poor deer were it left to survive without protection.

We realize from the words and depictions of the story by Herbert that while he may sympathize with their fate he is not ready to romanticize their lives. He realizes that the Elman's and their friends were good people. Simple folks who would be ready to live their lives in the same way without change through the years, and yet that did not make them saints. They were very human and had their faults and could not be proclaimed from their actions. The humorous vein of the novel is satiric and seems 'darker' than the words belie. The word 'teeth' is used in an ironic mode which presents the dental problems prominent in the society while the immigrants from the city seem to be 'invaders' to the Elman's.