37 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas SavageThe Power of the Dog
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel begins with a graphic description of the castration of cattle. Next, the two brothers the novel’s plot centers on are introduced: Phil Burbank is 40 years old. He is a hardened rancher who takes pride in his masculinity. He is lean and wears the evidence of his life as a rancher with pride. He refuses to wear gloves for almost all the chores on the ranch, except castration. He likes to tease people, especially his brother, George. Phil is also literate and can pretty much learn anything, such as how to play the banjo, by teaching himself. By contrast, George is 38. He is stockier, serious, and generally a man of few words. He rarely lets down his guard. Like Phil, he is also literate. Both men are fully aware that they have inherited everything in life, including the ranch they tend, from their wealthy parents whom they refer to as the “Old Gent” and the “old Lady” (7).
It is 1925 in Montana, and the two men are preparing to drive their head of cattle to the nearby town of Beech. Phil recognizes that the drive will coincide with the silver anniversary of their time together as ranchers. Talk between the two brothers is minimal, and George does not seem to recognize the anniversary. Instead, he is detached from Phil which causes the latter some anxiety, though he is the type who would never admit it. After waiting for George to mention the anniversary, Phil brings it up in his understated way. George tells Phil that he forgot. The two men lead the cattle drive to the outskirts of Beech where they see the town from a distance. The narrator points to a place called The Inn, and the cemetery close by. At the cemetery is a grave that is decorated with paper flowers covered by a jar.
Chapter 2 Summary
The novel’s second plotline describes the story of Johnny Gordon and his wife, Rose. Johnny is an aspiring doctor working at an African American charity hospital in Chicago when the two first meet. Johnny is introverted and highly sensitive. His superiors recommend that he find a quiet town in which to hone his skills and become desensitized to the work. Johnny follows the advice, and he and Rose move to Beech where Johnny conducts his practice. Beech is a small, quiet, Western town in the tradition of the frontier-west, and the sensitive Johnny is somewhat out of place there.
The Gordons purchase The Inn, and Johnny sets up his office there. Soon, the two have a child, which Johnny delivers himself, and they name the child Peter. The child is late in talking, and the parents sense that something is a bit off with the boy. The residents of the town likewise notice that Peter has a wide variety of ailments, and Johnny develops anxiety that the town will think Peter gets it all from his father. As Peter grows a little older and enters school, he is bullied, in part because his father at one time cared after a dying sex worker. Johnny senses that he partially causes the harassment of his son and is ashamed. There is also speculation that Johnny drinks too much because he has low self-esteem and high levels of anxiety, and this gossip also leads to more harassment of Peter from others his age. Johnny drinks to feel less small and more like ranchers, who he perceives as having the rugged masculinity he lacks. On one occasion, Johnny is drunk and has a run-in with Phil. Johnny makes small talk and tries to be friendly, but Phil does not perceive it as such. Phil loathes small talk, and as Johnny increases it, Phil becomes increasingly hostile, to the point where he grabs Johnny by the neck and throws him into the wall. Johnny is humiliated and tells Rose what happened. He also tells Peter, who is 12 when this incident happens, that he loves him and then he dies by suicide at The Inn by hanging himself. Peter discovers Johnny’s body.
Chapter 3 Summary
After Johnny’s death, The Inn gains some notoriety, and many people are reluctant to go there. Over time, because of the transitory nature of towns like Beech, the notoriety wanes as many members of the town move away. With the sordid reputation gone, Rose changes the appearance of the establishment and the name to The Red Mill, which she operates as a roadhouse. The restaurant earns praise for its food which is prepared by Rose with the help of Peter.
The narrator shifts focus back to the Burbank outfit and more character description of Phil. Phil is rigid in how he views the world, but unlike George, he tends to make exceptions for those who are like him, namely younger ranch hands. Phil recalls the time when he had his run-in with Johnny which occurred some years back, and the narrator explains the rationale Johnny uses to justify his treatment of Johnny. He does not feel remorse for having humiliated the man, the shame of which caused him to take his own life. The narrator recounts a similar scene in which Phil lambastes a drunken shepherd for daring to bring his dog into a public establishment. When they arrive at The Red Mill, Phil notices Peter and immediately judges him because of the way Peter waits on the customers with a towel draped over his arm, a gesture that Phil perceives as foreign and pretentious. For this gesture, Phil calls Peter a sissy and attempts to humiliate him over the boy’s lisp. Peter does not take the bait. After dinner, Phil checks into his room at the Red Mill and waits up for George, who silently walks into the room. When Phil asks George where he has been, George tells him that Phil made Rose cry because of how he treated Peter.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Chapters 1 and 2 are both heavy on characterization. Phil and George are introduced in the midst of the ritual castration of bull calves on the ranch. The castration is a motif in the novel that symbolizes much of what will transpire toward the end of the novel. It also symbolizes the tendency that Phil has to emasculate the men around him. To fulfill the role he feels destined for, which is to be the dominant alpha male, Phil belittles and demeans those he sees as less masculine. While Phil has the tendency to bully others, George by comparison is much less antagonistic. He also is relatively quiet and serious which makes the ranch-hands that work for the Burbanks more suspicious of George. They see in George the aristocratic Burbank family lineage, and this makes the ranch-hands uncomfortable in his presence. The same is not true for Phil, whom they likewise fear, but because of his more outgoing nature, and because he takes extreme pride in being a rancher to the point where he defines himself solely through his work, they see themselves in him. He is their undisputed leader. Nevertheless, Phil also represents the Toxic Masculinity that infects the community of ranchers.
Chapter 2 introduces Johnny and Rose Gordon. Johnny is a nervous man who has little belief in himself. He is guided by his kindness and compassion. He says of himself, “A man once called me kind, not good. I don’t fool myself. That’s my virtue” (37). He is the stark opposite of Phil for whom kindness is a weakness, and while he demonstrates a high degree of grit in his own right in becoming a doctor, he feels that somehow he is out of place. Perhaps because of his struggles with his low self-esteem, Johnny drinks too much. When he leaves his residency and meets with his supervisor, he drinks prior to the meeting. He uses it to lower his social anxiety but also as a coping mechanism. When the fateful encounter between him and Phil takes place at the bar, Johnny is drunk. Phil gives him a beating, and the larger symbolism here suggests that the strong will always prevail over the weak. The recognition of this is at the core of what plagues Johnny. He senses his own shortcoming, saying, “I never had much confidence” (37). The beating is a devastating blow to Johnny’s already fragile ego, and he sees it as a symbol for his life. He comes to view himself as pathetic and a huge obstacle for his wife and young son, and so to remove the obstacle from their lives, he dies by suicide. The juxtaposition between Phil and Johnny reflects the book’s theme of Kindness vs. Cruelty.
