Live like a Dog, alone

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Live Like a Dog, Alone She thought about what he had just said. “Now I live like a dog, alone.” It seemed as a statement, unnecessarily gloomy. But then, so did he. – Live like a dog, alone by Fay Weldon, l. 1-2 “Live like a dog, alone” is a short story about a middle aged woman, by the name of Miriam, who is driven home from the hospital by an immigrant taxi driver from Kosovo. The woman, Miriam, is fifty-five years old and is an unusually positive woman, who has a habit of cheering people up and taking the worst situations with a smile. It was also this habit that in the end drove her husband away, as he seemingly couldn’t take anymore of her apparent optimism, and ran away with a hysterical actress, with a drug problem. She has some stress problems which relates to her heart and every few months she is driven to the hospital for treatment. In the story, she is on her way home from the hospital, where she had just been treated for heart problems. She sees it as her duty to cheer up the taxi driver, but can’t bring herself to say the few words that might have some impact, that he should change his attitude, his shirt, comb his hair and be nice to people etc. and instead continues his analogy of animal comparisons. The reason for this, is that she don’t want to get too involved, but still wants to be involved, to be heard, and to help this man on a lighter scale, without too much personal sacrifice. She also has an irrational fear of the taxi driver, probably caused by exposure to some of the more judgmental media, where immigrants are presented as common thugs, rapists, drug addicts and other stereotypical criminal behavior. The taxi driver is an immigrant from Kosovo, and rants on about how lonely he is, how the women don’t like him and that his friends don’t count, since it’s not the same as having a wife. He compares himself to a dog, as he states that no
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