42 pages • 1 hour read
Andre AlexisFifteen Dogs
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Atticus’s Last Wish”
Chapter Three explores Atticus’s character and thought process, its impact on Zeus, and the consequences on Benjy.
When he first assumed leadership of the pack, Atticus instituted four rules: “No strange talk,” “A strong leader,” “A good den,” and “The weak in their proper place” (93). Atticus regrets Bobbie’s murder because he recognizes that it chased away Benjy and Dougie, leaving the pack without small dogs who would accept being the lowest echelon. This created a power imbalance that resulted in yet another pack member’s death.
Though capable of subordinating thought to “forceful action” and “instinctive decisions,” Atticus has “a conscience” (92.) This conscience eventually leads him to have faith in an ideal dog, a “dog of dogs” (96) to whom he turns for guidance as the pack begins to fall apart. He creates a shrine to this ideal dog, where each night he leaves a portion of his food as an offering. Atticus’s sacrifice moves Zeus.
Zeus discovers Apollo and Hermes’s wager and chastises them for their cruelty. Dogs will “suffer twice as much as humans do” because of “their senses and instincts” (92). He commands Apollo and Hermes not to interfere with the dogs any further. Zeus’s pity for Atticus, his favorite, inspires him to offer Atticus (who also ate the poisoned food through Benjy’s deception) a last wish. Atticus wishes that “the one responsible for his pack’s demise be punished” (98).
After escaping Majnoun, Benjy wanders the streets looking for a place to stay. Zeus, disguised as a friendly elderly man, lures him onto a tram, drawing him further away from familiar streets. Benjy follows a trail back to the river, where he runs into Prince, who delights in reuniting with a former pack mate who speaks his language. Benjy’s sanitized version of the pack’s death grieves Prince deeply. Benjy asks to hear Prince’s story, hoping to hear something of personal use. Prince explains that he eventually found a woman, Clare, who fed him. Prince brings Benjy to her house, warning him that her male partner, Randy, is not as predictable as she is.
Benjy impresses Randy with his use of English and his willingness to perform tricks, and eventually supplants Prince in both Randy and Clare’s affections. They no longer welcome Prince, leaving him alone again, and Benjy assumes what he believes to be a privileged position inside their home.
The couple’s behavior puzzles Benjy, creating a power imbalance that only Benjy perceives because he assesses power relationships using his dog instincts. He initially assumes that Randy is the pack leader because he is male and concludes that he need not respect Clare. His feelings change after he witnesses the couple performing sadomasochistic sex with Randy in the subordinate position. Having lost respect for Randy, Benjy stops performing tricks at his command, leading Randy to become bored of him and Clare to believe that they overestimated Benjy’s intelligence.
When the couple runs out of money and has to leave town suddenly, Clare makes a half-hearted effort to take Benjy with them. Since he does not respect her, he ignores her when she calls him, assuming they will return since he, as pack leader, has not given them permission to leave. After he finally accepts that he has been abandoned and is desperate for food, he eats poison treats hidden in mouse traps that were left behind, dying the same way Atticus and the pack did and with the same hope for a place beyond where “schemes were unnecessary because he was safe,” because “the echelon was clear to all,” “the powerful cared for the weak and the weak gave their respect without being coerced” (117).
Benjy’s death leaves Hermes and Apollo at the same impasse they experienced with the previous deaths. Apollo does not believe hope constitutes happiness, and Hermes regrets not having clarified the bet’s terms.
Chapter 3 Analysis
Zeus’s behavior in Chapter Three is consistent with his function in ancient epic. Zeus is literally the father of Apollo and Hermes, with different mortal mothers, but he is also the figurative father of all the gods and dispenser of justice. In the Iliad, Zeus repeatedly warns the other gods not to interfere in mortal affairs then acts himself, both of which also happen in Chapter Three. His anger at Apollo and Hermes derives from their manipulation of the natural order. They have disrupted the world’s balance by granting dogs a skillset for which they are not suited, which unjustly amplifies the suffering that they would already experience as mortal beings. Atticus’s sacrifices moving Zeus to grant Atticus a last wish reflects his relationship with mythological heroes: Only heroes who respect the gods through sacrifices and libations can expect divine help. Atticus’s chosen form of worship—creating a shrine and offering a portion of his daily meals to the ideal dog—also mirrors pagan worship depicted in myths.
Atticus conceptualizes his god figure as a perfect expression of qualities he considers noble: “sharp senses, absolute authority, unparalleled prowess at hunting, irresistible strength” (95-96). Majnoun’s “master of all masters” (49) conceptualizes god from the opposite side of the human-dog relationship, reflecting the two dogs’ divergent perspectives. Atticus has faith in dogs, when they are proper dogs, while Majnoun does not.
Atticus’s violent leadership belies his sensitive nature, as demonstrated when he woke up in the veterinary clinic feeling compassion for his prey and when he felt regret about attempting to kill Majnoun. Atticus’s motivation is not brutality or love of violence, then, but despair at what he feels consciousness has robbed him of: proper dog instincts, which he sees as proper dog virtues. In Aristotelian terms, happiness is impossible without these virtues.
Atticus is Zeus’s favorite because Zeus understands him; both recognize the importance of hierarchies and showing respect. Atticus realizes too late that he made several miscalculations as a leader, which resulted in the power imbalance that rendered the pack unsustainable. Killing Bobbie frightened Dougie and Benjy because it was extreme, unnecessary and, in Benjy’s view, a violation of dog values. He subsequently lost trust in Atticus’s leadership and fled the pack, leaving it without a natural low dog.
Since dominance can only exist in relation to submission, Atticus needed to assign one of the remaining dogs the low dog position, but none of the four remaining dogs naturally fit the description. Atticus sensed that neither Frick nor Frack would accept subordination and, when working together, could have successfully challenged Atticus for the top position, leaving only Rosie and Max. Atticus knew he should assign Rosie the bottom position, but he could not bring himself to do it because he felt emotional attraction to her, further evidence of how far he had strayed from dog instincts. He selected Max for demotion, but Max did not accept it. When Rosie attempted to dominate him, he would fight back, and Atticus would intervene to defend her. This was a further violation of dog ways since Max had the right to challenge Rosie for a better position. Atticus’s interference created persistent tension in the pack, until Frick and Frack wounded Max so severely that Atticus had to kill him.
Unlike Atticus, Benjy isn’t troubled by consciousness. He does not attempt to form emotional bonds with either humans or dogs but uses human intelligence to improve his position, believing that “might does what might will do” (61), a sentiment expressed verbatim (depending on translation) in History of the Peloponnesian War by ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Within the pack, Benjy was willing to accept the low dog position but felt that the top dogs abused their power and expressed their dominance inappropriately, leaving him confused and fearful. Benjy miscalculated his position with Clare and Randy because he applied dog language in a situation where it did not apply. His case most glaringly demonstrates the cruelty that Zeus accused Apollo and Hermes of, because he remains, of all the dogs, most true to his instincts, yet they fail him.
Both Benjy and Atticus experience hope at the end of their lives. Benjy hopes for a place where “balance, order, right and pleasure” (117), which his mortal life lacked, exist. Atticus hopes that whoever brought about his and the pack’s deaths will face judgement. Hermes appeals to Apollo to expand the definition of happiness to include hope, but Apollo cuts him off, asking, “Are we suddenly human that we need to argue about words?” (118). The gods do not accept hope as a condition of happiness.
