No_Dogs_Bark

No Dogs Bark    Would you help someone even if you hated them'  What would it take for you to help them'  As the reader we find ourselves in the place of a man who finds himself forced to answer these exact questions.  The beginning of the story finds a father in the unusual situation of literally carrying his son on his back.  We discover right away that the two characters have a poor relationship with one another. In the short story “No Dogs Bark” written by Juan Rulfo, A father struggles physically and emotionally to reach the nearest town in order to get the necessary help for his wounded and troubled son.  The author attempts to show the possible changes of different people after the death of a loved one. The father makes a difficult decision to save his life despite the remorse he feels.             The point of view in this short story is third person limited focusing more on the father than the son.  The chosen point of view stays consistent throughout the whole story.  The thoughts and feelings of the father are often told by the narrator instead of through his own mind.  We rarely are told how the son feels except for when the father asks “How do you feel'” or “Do you feel bad'” (16). This story is told almost completely through dialogue.  From the characters’ speech the reader must make inferences about their relationship and the events they have experienced. We are forced to learn about the characters through their implied actions.  From the point of view the son feels disconnected from the story because he has minimal Burke 2 reaction and feeling towards his father.  The story should have been told from the point of view of one of the characters to make the narrator more reliable. I think this point of view was not effective because it left the readers still curious about important details that were never mentioned.  From a different point of view in this story we would be more likely to understand the significance of the question “And you didn’t hear them, Ignacio'” (18)             The short story is built around the internal and external conflicts surrounding both the characters. Ironically, it could be said that the selected conflicts are equivalent to the antagonist character working against the father and son, because no other characters are involved with in the context. Society is an external conflict preventing the dad from finding the nearest town, describing the setting as “There was no moon. Facing them. A large red moon that filled their eyes with light and stretched and darkened its shadow over the earth” (16).  Both characters are challenged by similar, but extremely different internal conflicts.  The father wonders whether saving his son’s life is the right choice because of his poor criminal background. Contradictions of his decision are shown when he says “I’ll break my back, but I’ll get to Tonaya with you so they can ease those wounds you got. I’m sure as soon as you feel well, you’ll go back to your bad ways” (17).  The father doubts that his son will ever be able to change himself for the better.  Ignacio becomes frightened by the reality that if they reach town he would be executed for the horrible lifestyle he lives. He tries to convince his father that he deserves to die, while complaining “Put me down here---leave me here---you go alone. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow or as soon as I get a little better” ( 16).  Knowing that if he was left there alone he would quickly be dead before any help could reach him. Burke 3   The only event that connects the father and son in this story is the death of the mother/wife. The father blames Ignacio for the death of his mother, exclaiming “And you would’ve killed her again if she lived till now!” (17) The father knows that his wife would never  have forgave him if he let their son die. The man honestly tells his son the real reason he is willing to help, “I’m not doing all this for you. I’m doing it for your dead mother. Because you were her son” (17).  The father knows that helping him is overall the right decision, although he has always been filled with a sense of disappointment and disapproval. On the journey the father finally gains the courage to open up and scold Ignacio. He recalls a time that he said “ That one cannot be my son” (17), because he never could understand why he deserved such an awful son. The reader is left wandering if Ignacio actually felt sadness or regret, when the father asks “ Are you crying, Ignacio' The memory of your mother makes you cry, doesn’t it'” (18)  Maybe he  realized the fact that he repaid his parents badly for no reason or the wetness could have just been the blood from death of which he earned.             When earlier told “ But, at least you should hear dogs barking. Try to hear” (17) Ignacio denies the noise from the town because he does not want to reach the town.  The father is so upset and angry with his life that he never hears the barking for himself.  By the time the town is reached we assume that the son has died, “ With difficulty he unpried his son’s fingers from around his neck. When he was free, he heard the dogs barking everywhere” (18) . He could finally hear the barking from the town because he was relieved of all the pain in his life.  The death of Ignacio remains a mystery because even though he did not respond to his father’s question that was not an unusual act throughout the story. The father concludes with the Burke 4 statement “ You didn’t even help me listen” (18), because he believes that Ignacio never attempted to change his life. In the end, the father is able to move forward beyond the loss of his wife and change despite the difficult encounter with his nearly impossible son. The overall theme of “ No Dogs Bark” is that we should never let anything come between us living life the way we have planned for ourselves. The father learns that helping others is always the right thing to do in any situation no matter how much hurt they have caused. The title of the story ties the entire story together by using a universal message that every one should follow. WORK CITED Rulfo, Juan. “No Dogs Bark.” Contemporary Short Stories. P.15-19. McDougal, Littlel & Company. 1993.