“Beware Of The Dog” by Roald Dahl revolves around a soldier who is flying across the country with a broken leg and who decides to land on parachute He falls into enemy territory but does not realize that he had done so until he saw the sign outside the window. The people who had saved him are in fact from the country with which Britain was at war. Terrified of the future Peter Williamson only gives the required information his leaders asked to give to save themselves.
Dahl had served in the army himself so this story is similar to his experience and the story has made use of surrealism which makes it seem like Williamson is hallucinating sometimes. The story brings out the realities of war and the suffering those who participated in it, willingly or otherwise.
Beware Of The Dog | Summary
Peter Williamson is sitting in the cockpit of his plane Spitfire with a leg that had been blown off by a shell. He is still flying the plane and he thinks that he will not be calling the blood wagon for help, he will land and casually mention his leg which is now gone from his thigh down. Now he will also not walk but use a car to travel. Then he realizes that he is not feeling so good, he feels sick and giddy and his neck has no strength to support his head. He understood that soon he would pass out. He was at a height of twenty-one thousand altitudes and if he wanted to save himself then he would have to land. He quickly pushes the hood of the plane back with both his hands and the cool air clears his mind enough to turn the plane upside down and fall from it. He was sure that the location would be the Channel.
As he is falling he keeps his eyes open because he cannot lose consciousness. He sees the sun on one side and the clouds on the other and as he continues falling it seems they are chasing each other in a circle. To Peter, the world was looking white and black and it was switching between those two colours very quickly. Peter had been familiar with this so much that he always sleeps during the white periods and just opens his eyes when the black is approaching. When he tries to touch the white once, when he is not asleep, the white transforms into a sheet.
Peter realizes that he is in the hospital room when he sees the basin and the medicine glass beside it. He is in a hospital but he does not remember anything until he notices the fly on the wall on the grey ceiling. He remembers evacuating the plane and pulling the parachute cord, he also remembers his leg. Then the door opens and a nurse walks in. She greets him to which Peter asks where he is. She replies that he has landed in the woods near Brighton and has been here for the last two days. She tells him to go back to sleep, and soon an army doctor will come to see him, but Peter cannot sleep and keeps looking at the fly on the ceiling until it is only a black spot on the grey ceiling. After a while, an army doctor enters with his war ribbons on his chest. He asks Peter how he is feeling. Peter replies that he is feeling all right. The doctor encourages him and also mentions that his friends, squadron mates, called to inquire about him and the doctor assured them Peter would be coming soon. Then he leaves while saying that if needs something then Peter just has to call the nurse.
When the nurse and the doctor go away, Peter is looking at the ceiling again. Then he hears the sound of an aeroplane. The sound is a heavy bass with a pitched tenor. He knows this sound and recalls it is a Junkers 88. As he is listening he is wondering why are there no sirens and how the Germans had the nerve to come s near Brighton in broad daylight. But nothing happens and the plane goes away; then another plane comes the same way and goes away. Peter is puzzled by this, he presses the bell for the nurse. Peter asks about the planes and says that he is sure they are JU-88s. The nurse feigns ignorance and goes to Peter to straighten out his sheets. She makes him comfortable and says that the planes are different because JU-88s don’t come out in daylight. She gives Peter a cigarette per his request and says to call her if he needs anything.
In the evening he again hears the sound of an aeroplane, but this time it is different from all the other planes he knows. He thinks he is going crazy and does not know what to think. The nurse comes in the evening with a basin to wash Peter. As she is rubbing the soap and the towel she exclaims that the soap is not lathering because the water is hard. Then Peter remembers his boyhood days from his childhood. He remembered the baths he used to take and the way the soap would form from layers of lather and foam because the water was so soft. He starts saying that in Brighton the water is not so hard when he stops and says that he was dreaming. He says he wants to shave and the nurse tells him that they will do that tomorrow.
In the night Peter keeps thinking about the planes and believes that he behaving like a fool. He decides to prove that he is not crazy but falls asleep. The next morning he woke up early, he remembered the events from yesterday and now there was a doubt growing in his mind. He realizes he has to do something and decides to take a look outside the window. He crawls his way there and sees a tilled house with a sign around which a bush is growing. The sign has a few words written on it and Peter reads it out as G-A-R-D-E-A-U-C-H-I-E-N. At this moment Peter realized he was in France. He crawls back to the bed very painfully now as the pain in his stump increases as if someone is hammering over it. The nurse comes in and starts washing him again. Peter notices she is too nervous and it contrasts with the way she speaks. She informs Peter that someone is coming from the Air Ministry after breakfast. She gives him a breakfast tray. Peter is feeling very sick now and remembers the words of the Intelligence Officer of his squadron Johnny who had said :
“If the enemy gets you only tell them your name, rank and number; for god’s sake say nothing else”
The nurse gives him an egg and leaves the room. When Peter finishes his breakfast a man introduced by the nurse as Wing Commander Roberts enters. He is an ordinary RAF officer and asks Peter how he is. Peter does not answer and the man says that he should get over his work as he has to fill out a combat report. He says Peter will have to answer some questions and asks Peter his squadron. Peter without moving says “My name is Peter Williamson. My rank is Squadron Leader and my number is nine seven two four five seven” just like the Intelligence Officer has taught him.
Beware Of The Dog | Analysis
Dahl had written the story for the October 1944 edition of Harper’s magazine. This was the time when the Second World War was about to end and there was a surge of surrealism in the field of literature and this story is a good example of it. Surrealism as a movement was a result of the uncertainty felt by the devastation of the wars. The people were so afraid of the carnage the war had brought that they could not discern the reality from the sub-reality. In this sense, Peter is very similar to the soldiers who were fighting in the war. The first instance is when Peter jumps off the plane and hurls down the sky at a frightening speed. At this time he only sees the world in a black-and-white vision and chooses to sleep when the white part comes and wakes up when the black seems to come closer. Then when he reached the hospital he had a nagging feeling that he was somewhere wrong yet he did not make any effort to understand the true location of the place. Perhaps this was because he was too afraid to face the reality of the situation and decided to live in his ignorance where he was given food and a bath. Only when certain things began to contrast with the way he remembered Brighton did he realize that he was not where he thought he was. He became agitated to know the truth and decided to look outside the window to know the truth. Outside he saw a sign in French which translated to “Beware Of The Dog” and as a result, he realized that he was in the hands of his enemy. When the enemy officer came he only gave the information he had been trained to give as that was the only way to save his life.
The aspects of surrealism add to the tense and mysterious atmosphere of the story. Many times during the story Peter feels as if he is going crazy and this is because his present reality is too harsh so he chooses to believe in the alternative reality which is a feature of post-modernism literature. He is confused and when the nurse and the doctor lie to him he believes them willingly even though the moment he hears the sound of the planes he knows there is something wrong here.
By using surrealism Dahl has effectively communicated the atmosphere and environment of the Second World War which was utter chaos to such an extent that people were now rejecting their reality as imagination very much like Peter.
Beware Of The Dog | Themes
The themes of the story are deception, enmity, disillusionment and fear. Peter is a pilot soldier who suffered an injury at the hands of the enemy and to save himself he lands his plane quickly before he loses consciousness. He ends up landing in enemy territory and does not know that. His enemies however treat him as if they were his allies and deceive him by saying he is in Brighton when in fact it was France. Peter is also very scared and tired from his injury so he does not give it much thought. When he hears the noise of the planes he knows it is the sound of enemy airplanes yet when he asks the nurse she coolly answers him that they were different and those planes had been stopped using in the mornings. Peter starts to feel something is wrong when the nurse mentions the water but he still does not pay it much mind. He is so desperate for comfort that he has disillusioned himself into believing that he is at Brighton even though it does not have hard water.
Finally, when it starts to become quite clear that he has been deceived Peter looks out of the window to notice the French words written beside a house “G-A-R-D-E-A-U-C-H-I-E-N” and realizes that he is in France. At this time he is aware of his situation and this is the time when fear begins to set in as he does not know what his enemies might do with him.
In this way, the fear of being in the hands of the enemy is the only thing Peter can feel at the end as he knows his future is uncertain.
Beware Of The Dog | Title
The title of the story is situational irony on Peter’s part as he realizes he has come to his enemies instead of his friends for help. The French words he sees outside the window translate to the title of the story “Beware Of The Dog” and it becomes quite clear that the Dog is a metaphor for the enemy. In this way, the title of the story is reflective of its main plot point which is when Peter discovers the location of the hospital.
Beware Of The Dog | Character Sketch
The main protagonist of the story is Peter Williamson. He is a squadron leader who pilots an aircraft. When his leg has been blown off he is quite courageous and jumps off the plane with a parachute and saves himself. Yet when the time comes to save himself from the enemy he is rendered powerless because of his leg and also because of his fear. He is scared of the outcome and manages to say only his rank and number in the end because he had previously disillusioned himself in the hopes of escaping reality.
Beware Of The Dog | Literary Devices
The story uses allusion to refer to the Second World War like when Dahl mentions the word German and the names of the aircraft like Junkers-88, Spitfire, Lancaster and Flying fortresses. These are the names that were used by opposing forces during the Second World War. Dahl also mentions the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War where the captured soldier is required to give information about his name, rank, and serial number which Peter does unwillingly.
The story is a powerful take on the instability left behind by the Second World War and Dahl has expressed through Peter the hopelessness and disillusionment the people were feeling at that time. By providing a chilling experience Dahl wishes to show the cruelties of war and how it is better to avoid such wars in the future.
