Roughing It · Chapter
V explained
The narrator describes the beauty and freedom of the overland journey, then provides a detailed, humorous, and exaggerated portrait of the coyote, its appearance, behavior, and survival in the desert, including a comedic chase between a dog
What happens
The narrator describes the beauty and freedom of the overland journey, then provides a detailed, humorous, and exaggerated portrait of the coyote, its appearance, behavior, and survival in the desert, including a comedic chase between a dog and a coyote.
Themes in this chapter
Humor and Exaggeration
The entire description of the coyote and the dog chase is a comic exaggeration, highlighting the absurdity of the dog's futile pursuit.
Frontier Myth vs. Reality
The coyote is portrayed as a symbol of the harsh, unromantic reality of the desert, contrasting with any idealized notions of the frontier.
Characters to notice
- The Narrator
Describes the landscape and the coyote from personal experience.
Key passages
“The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck and friendless.”
The coyote embodies constant need and deprivation, perpetually hungry, unlucky, and without companions.
Highlights the narrator's personification of the coyote as a symbol of destitution.
“And then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the coyote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: 'Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub—business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day'—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!”
Just as the dog feels a surge of hope, the coyote casually smiles, as if to say it has more important things to do, then instantly vanishes, leaving the dog utterly alone in the empty landscape.
Illustrates the coyote's cunning and the comedic deflation of the dog's expectations.