'Black Dogs' by Ian McEwan

Contents

1.  Introduction and plot of the book 3  

2.  June s character 4  

3.  Bernard s character 5  

4.  The standpoint of the narrator Jeremy 6  

5.  Bibliography 9  

1.  Introduction and plot of the book  

  The book Black Dogs by Ian McEwan is about June and Bernard  

  Tremaine and the incompatibility of their different worldviews and  

  corresponding lifestyles Their first encounter is in 1944 at their  

  workplace an office in Senate House Bloomsbury London where June  

  works as a linguist doing translation work for a project involving the  

  adaptation of treadle sewing machines to power generation (p  135CCCCCCC

  and Bernard originally a Cambridge science graduate has a desk  

  job peripherally connected with the intelligence services (p  135CCCCCCC.

  Two years later the newly-weds sign up as members of the Communist  

  Party leave their jobs and travel to the former battlefields of Europe  

  with the intention of building a new Europe During their honeymoon  

  they also spend some time in the south of France where June  is

  (almost) attacked by two huge black dogs She manages to drive them  

  away but is deeply frightened She sees them as an encounter with evil  

  Nevertheless June really enjoys the countryside of this area and buys a  

  house there Unfortunately hers and  

  Bernard s worldviews are too different to combine and they live more  

  and more often apart from each other Their children grow up partly  in

  England and partly in France Whereas June leaves the Communist  

  Party after a few months due to the difference between Communist  

  ideas and the way these ideas were put into practice Bernard stays for  

  approximately 10 years June retreats to her house in France and starts  

  writing books about wild flowers and meditation Bernard joins the  

  labour Party and runs as a candidate for them He writes books as well  

  often appears on TV and radio and works on government committees on  

3  NA  

broadcasting, the environment and pornography. Unfortunately, later in her life, June is taken ill with probably incurable cancer and decides to return to England to spend her last days in a home. Jeremy, her son-in- law, very often meets her and intends to write a memoir about her life. Before he even starts to write it June dies but he has been taking notes of their chats. Bernard, although having lived estranged and separated from his wife, is very sad. Nonetheless he has to cope with it and about two years later, Bernard and Jeremy fly to Berlin where the Wall has just come down.

2. June's character

As mentioned before June and Bernard have very contrasting characters. One of the main features of June's character is her love for nature. A major proof for this is her buying a house in the south of France to live in the countryside (p. 170). She has a passion for wild flowers and is truly an expert on them (p. 35). Her love for nature becomes very clear at Bernard's and June's trip to the Dolmen de la Prunarede when she just wants to sit there and watch nature. June would never kill an insect either, as Bernard would for his collection of insects. She is horrified by his ‘addiction’ of collecting animals and labelling them and cannot understand why Bernard kills an animal only for the sake of the collection (p. 76). In her opinion people should live in harmony with nature and the universe and see it as a unity. For this reason June practises meditation and writes books about meditating (p. 172). She takes her attitude of mind from Lao Tzu's ‘The Way of Tao’ (p. 35).

June is deeply convinced of the existence of a higher power, like nature or God (p. 43: “… call it God if you want.”) and believes in evil, she even says “… the evil...lives in us all.” (p. 172). In addition to that, she believes that if someone kills an animal he will be punished for this. When Bernard and June are both standing at the small station in southern France waiting for the train Bernard wants to kill a dragonfly to add it to his collection. June deeply objects to this. At this time she is already pregnant and fears nature could wish to take revenge for the killing of the insect in the form of making something happen to her

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unborn child (p. 76). When Jenny, later Jeremy's wife, is born, she has a sixth finger. June sees this as nature's revenge.

She enjoys thinking about life because life is not static and it has a purpose - therefore it is “in our interests to open ourselves to it” (p. 20). She regards life as a long transformation - but everybody should “take responsibility for his own life and attempt to improve it” (p. 171), whether spiritually or materially. For this, short-term, practical and realisable goals in life are the most suitable (p.171).

June is very interested in every mystic thing, she even says that “Rationalism is a blind faith.” (p. 117). Moreover she has no faith in abstract principles.

Together with Bernard she joins the Communist Party in 1946. But June's actual “Communist career” begins in the Socialist Cycling Club of Amersham which has affiliations with the Communist Party (p. 39). In this club she feels understood, she is amongst other young people and they cycle through the countryside. At this time Communism and her love of the countryside are inseparable and are all part of those romantic, idealistic feelings you have at this age (p. 41). Probably June in a way romanticises this period of her life and eventually joins the Party. But a few months later she leaves because she is convinced of the existence of God and evil but they are both incompatible with Communism. She partly blames the black dogs as well for leaving the party. In her opinion they changed her life in a way that she “… met evil and discovered God.” (p. 60). Instead of mythologising these animals she makes use of them and they set her free. (p. 59: "I discovered something.")

3. Bernard's character

In contrast to June, a very irrational character interested in mystic things, Bernard is the total opposite. He would kill an insect even if it was only for his collection (p. 76: “It's a beauty.”). This is not a threat to the population because insect populations are huge and insects are genetically just clones of each other and that is why he does not see them as individuals (p. 77). Bernard classifies animals and insects into groups and labels them in order to understand nature. Learning

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