Black Dogs

by Ian McEwan
-Summary-

The novel opens with Jeremy, the main character who is also the
narrator, an orphan whose parents died in a car accident. He lives
with his sister, Jean, her husband, Harper and their daughter, Sally.
Jeremy longs for affection and is always looking for a caring family.
His friends’ parents like him a lot because he is very different from
their children. He is a loving person while their children behave in a
bad way.
He leaves to Oxford, but he doesn’t feel completely happy because
he has a feeling of guilt concerning his niece, Sally. She had to live
with, and keep for herself her parents’ violence.
One day, Jeremy's life changes. He meets Jenny Tremaine, June
and Bernard’s daughter. He marries her at the age of 35.
June and Bernard have different views on life. Bernard is an atheist
and a communist while his wife is deeply religious, after she faces
Evil by dreaming two black dogs that she fought with when she was
young.
This way, Jeremy finds himself in a dysfunctional family in which
the children are, somehow, forced to have no relations with their
parents.
The first part of the book begins with Jeremy looking at a photo of
Jenny’s parents and notices that the hardships of life produced some
changes upon their faces.
June arrives at an asylum because she is suffering from a serious
illness. Jeremy always visits June to interview her, more precisely, to
listen to her life stories. Jeremy wants to write a book about June’s
life, in spite of the fact that the members of her family are against
this idea. June narrates how she and Bernard became members of
the Communist Party, adding that they had different views on life,
religion and politics.
June tells her son-in-law how she met Bernard. Being a translator,
she took documents to the Senate House where she saw a man who
looked very attractive to her. She tried to make herself attractive to
him, but he ignored her until one day when she succeeded to draw
his attention. He invited her out and since then they became
inseparable. Jeremy finds out that his father-in-law has a different
vision on the way he met June.
June was excited when she made love with Bernard for the first
time, but he tells Jeremy that June doesn’t even remember how
their first night was.
June tells Jeremy about her strange dream and the way it terrified
her and changed her perception on life.
Observing that his mother-in-law is tired, Jeremy leaves the hospital
and after a while, June dies. Bernard is grieved about the death of
his wife.
The second part of the novel depicts Jenny and Jeremy lying in bed.
They are disturbed by Bernard’s phone call who urges them to turn
on the TV. Seeing that the Berlin Wall is about to fall, Jeremy
decides to accompany his father-in-law who is determined to go to
Germany.
On their way to Germany, Bernard tells about his first argument
with June, followed by her confession about being pregnant with
Jenny. The reason for their fight was Bernard’s desire to have a
dragonfly for his collection of insects. June thought that if Bernard
killed a dragonfly, their child may have died.
This part of the novel describes the atmosphere caused by the Fall of
the Berlin Wall. Getting there, Bernard and Jeremy go for a walk to
the Berlin Wall. They notice that the Wall is still there. Jeremy
decides to take his father-in-law to a café as Bernard seems very
tired.
Bernard wants to calm down a group of violent young people, but
they hit him to his knee. He falls to the ground and he is saved by a
young girl who reminds him of his wife, June. They get into a taxi
that drives them to their apartment.
In the third part, Bernard returns home and Jeremy remembers
how he met his wife. He in was in love with her and when she asked
him to accompany her into a concentration camp in Majdanek,
Warsaw. After visiting the camp, Jeremy and Jenny stayed at a
hotel for three days.
Jeremy’s story returns to present: he arrives at the house of his
dead mother-in-law. He is terrified at the thought that June’s spirit
might haunt the place. Jeremy thinks that he is going to lose his
mind because he can hear the voices of his parents-in-law arguing in
his brain. Jeremy calls Jenny to tell her what is happening to him.
but she is ironical and tells him to continue writing June’s
memories.
After a walk to Dolmen, Jeremy stops hearing the voices. He
remembers a terrible event: when he was at Madam Auriac’s hotel,
he saw a child who was hit by his father from a stupid reason. The
cry of the child made his father more aggressive, but nobody had the
courage to intervein into their family conflict. This feeling of
completely loneliness was associated by Jeremy with his childhood
drama of being an orphan.
In the last part of the novel, the narration goes back to the spring of
1946, when his parents-in-law were on their honeymoon in France
and Italy. In Italy they worked as volunteers for the Red Cross,
because they wanted peace and to build a ‘New Europe’. After a
while, they left the Red Cross and continued their journey in nature,
in Causse de Larzac. In that quiet place the young couple talked
about politics, social problems connected to communism and about
their future. The peacefulness felt by June in the middle of the
nature led her to a deep revelation.
The next day, June and Bernard started to travel again in nature,
despite June’s dissatisfaction. June lost her husband in the woods
and she saw two big, black dogs. At first, she thought that the dogs
were trying to give her a message, but then, terrified, she attacked
the dogs with stones and a knife. The dogs ran away and after half
an hour, Bernard found June in the middle of a path. He asked her
to continue their trip to Navacelles, but she refused and returned to
the hotel. June told Madame Auriac what had happened in the
woods and she asked the mayor to join them on the terrace. The
mayor narrates about a communist secret organization called
‘Antoinette’ which was under the authority of the Gestapo which
was helped by two huge, black dogs. He went on to say that a
woman named Danielle Bertrand was raped by the Gestapo.
Madame Auriac criticized the mayor that the woman hadn’t been
helped by anyone. He confirmed to June that the dogs she had
defeated that morning were the same dogs that had attacked
Danielle. He assured June that the dogs would be shot, but nothing
happened.
The young couple went to Vacquerie. On their way, they saw a
stoneworker who was drawing three names on a stone. They also
saw a woman who wore mourning clothes. Then, Bernard had a
revelation about the lives lost in vain during the wars and the
sufferings and loneliness provoked to innocent people. Lost in the
forest, the two met a shepherd who led them to his
‘bergerie’(sheepfold). June bought the sheepfold and after giving
birth to her third child, she moved there.
The narration turns back to present with Jeremy finding two sheets
of paper in which June expresses her revelation, her views on
spiritual life and the significance of the ‘black dogs’. The ‘black
dogs’ are, in fact, the dark sides of our spirits, they are something
that we keep deep inside our hearts. It’s up to us to change our
thoughts and spirits for a better self-consciousness.
The book ends with the same strange dream of June which starts to
haunt Jeremy, too.