80 pages • 2 hours read
Barbara O'ConnorHow to Steal a Dog
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Social Exclusion and Desperation
The threat of social exclusion is a key impetus behind Georgina’s dog-stealing scheme. She makes clear from the outset that her decision to steal the dog coincides with her snooty middle-class friend Luanne finding out that she lives in a car. To Georgina, the uncertainty over when this humiliating situation will end is intolerable, and she seeks a fast, if illegal, route to putting things right and reclaiming her place in the status quo.
O’Connor shows the pain of Georgina’s humiliation when her circumstances cannot be concealed as easily as she would like. Markers of car-living and poverty become inscribed on her body, as she cannot wash or maintain her clothes to the same standards. She also cannot attend the same extracurricular activities as her friends because she has to help her mother with household tasks. Georgina’s continued wish to conceal what is painfully apparent, in addition to her absence from activities that will bond her with her peers, leads to her isolation. As she becomes increasingly isolated, Georgina retreats into her mind and the imaginative dog-stealing scheme that she thinks will magically restore her to the same standard of living as everyone else. For Georgina, reclaiming the appearance of her former identity is crucial to her ability to accept herself.
Georgina’s peers mirror Georgina’s rejection of her current state, as they exclude her, laugh at her, and call her names such as “dirt bag” (136). Her classmates’ lack of compassion is striking, as not one of them shows any concern for why Georgina has changed or offers to help her. This extreme situation creates the desperate circumstances that lead Georgina to think that she must steal in order to deserve her place among them.
Both Georgina and Toby react strongly to the sight of social outcast Mookie. Toby is keen to cast Mookie as a malodorous, homeless “bum” who is different from them to maintain the distinction that they are not the sort of people who become homeless (124). However, when Georgina retorts that Toby also smells and Toby returns the insult, they realize that trying to feel better than Mookie is futile when they currently have much in common with him. They therefore have no choice but to embrace his presence in their lives and learn the positive things he can teach them.
From her excluded perspective, as Georgina loosens ties with her peers and bonds with Carmella and Mookie, she gains a different perspective on life. While her peers strive to outdo each other in the material sphere, Georgina learns the importance of being a kind, compassionate person and of sticking by people in difficult circumstances.
At the end of the novel, after Georgina returns to modest housing, she still fantasizes about “being normal again” and having middle-class privileges such as a room of her own and ballet lessons like the other girls at school (167). However, her final thoughts are about Mookie, Willy, and Carmella, whom she wonders about and sends good wishes to. She thus realizes that being a good person and making the world a better place for others is more important than fitting in.
Relearning Unconditional Love After Abandonment
Willy the dog is an important figure for Georgina and Toby, as he gives them unconditional love at a time when their father “got tired of it all” and abandoned them (10). Georgina’s father, an absent figure in the novel, has broken the comforting illusion that a parent will love and be there for his children no matter what. Consequently, despite being told by her mother that her father’s abandonment is not her fault, Georgina harbors the suspicion that she is unlovable. This is exacerbated by her peers’ rejection of her now that she is poor and shabby-looking.
O’Connor sets up a direct link between Willy and Georgina’s father when Georgina sees Carmella rubbing “her nose back and forth against (Willy’s) nose” and giving him “the Eskimo kisses my daddy used to give me a long time ago when he loved me” (24). As Georgina establishes the painful theory that her father once loved her and no longer does, she contemplates Willy, a creature who loves and is loved unconditionally. While Georgina consciously wants the money that she thinks will come out of stealing Willy from his doting owner, subconsciously, her anger and envy over how much he is loved leads her to deprive him of what she has already been deprived of.
Still, Georgina’s time with Willy, who always makes his delight at her presence manifest, offers brief moments of respite from her problems. Although she is consumed with guilt at having taken Willy from his loving owner, she sees that in his eyes, she is still a good person. Willy’s enthusiastic reaction to her is the opposite of her peers’ rejection, or her mother’s annoyance at her bad moods. In return, Georgina does her utmost to gather enough scraps to feed Willy, not caring when her peers mock her for salvaging a half-eaten granola bar from the trash. Although it is within the morally suspect context of stealing, Georgina’s nurture of Willy contributes to her growth as a person.
In addition to being a friend to two dispossessed children, Willy’s propensity to offer rewards based on character leads him to favor two other outcasts from mainstream society. Willy’s owner, Carmella is mocked for her size and underappreciated by family members, who will not help her in times of need. While the human world lets Carmella down, her dog delights in seeing her and relishes the care she provides, especially after his sojourn outside a creepy house. Similarly, Willy favors Mookie, who many, including Georgina and Toby, dismiss as a bum.
Willy thus acts as a role model to the humans around him, who learn to judge on character and help each other, rather than conspiring against one another. At the end of the novel, although Carmella is glad to reclaim Willy, she insists that Georgina and Toby’s companionship is an asset to both her and her dog. Thus, the former order of judgment and self-interest is replaced by one of connection and mutual trust. This establishes a more supportive environment that will allow Georgina and Toby to heal after their father’s betrayal.
Coping with Moral Dilemmas
O’Connor’s book is a morality tale, encouraging young readers to assess Georgina’s moral quandary and think about how they would act under those circumstances. From the outset, O’Connor sets up the premise that Georgina’s life is turned upside-down through no fault of her own. She has done nothing to deserve living in a car and enduring the humiliating circumstances that estrange her from her peers. The reader might think she has every reason to be angry and do everything in her power to restore her life to the way it was.
When Georgina sees the poster offering a $500 reward for finding a lost dog, she knows that stealing is wrong. However, she believes that if her plan of stealing a dog and returning it to its owner works, she can mitigate its negative moral effects by contributing to re-housing her family. Importantly, Georgina intends to choose a rich victim who will not be substantially worse off for the loss of $500. In Georgina’s view, Carmella will get to keep her big house, while she and her family will gain the housing they badly need. Thus, her plan seeks to bring about the moral good of greater social equality.
Georgina uses her notebook to make a dog-stealing plan. She draws comfort from adding to it and checking off boxes, because it gives her a sense of control over this morally dubious action. As she writes, she feels she has power over her narrative and can fashion herself as a master-plotter rather than the low, common thief she fears becoming. Although Georgina acts ruthlessly in stealing the dog and in keeping him in less-than-ideal conditions, it is still important to her to be seen as a good person.
Still, Georgina’s conscience, which manifests as a disturbing “tapping feeling” from the moment she steals the dog, will not allow her to rest (78). Far from feeling in control, she finds that dog-stealing gives her more uncertainty and anxiety, as she worries whether Willy will survive the night, or whether Carmella will be able to raise the reward money in time. While Toby, Georgina’s more sensitive younger brother, seconds her conscience in requesting that they give up and return Willy to Carmella for free, Georgina’s devotion to the perfect outcome causes her to keep the charade going for an agonizingly long time. The longer she persists, the more things go wrong, as she cuts school to check on Willy and suffers stomachaches from the anxiety. O’Connor shows that while Georgina’s mind races ahead with her scheme and draws comfort from lists, her body tells her she is doing wrong. Even towards the end of the book, when Georgina attempts to return Willy anonymously, her feet feel heavy as “cement bricks, slowing me down until I couldn’t take another step” and leading her back to Carmella’s to confess her crime (161).
O’Connor shows that Carmella has a generous if firm reaction to Georgina’s confession. Although she emphasizes that Georgina did wrong, she understands that the misdeeds came out of desperate circumstances. Georgina’s relief at being morally straight is evident as her “tapping insides had finally settled down,” and she affirms in her notebook that it is best to ignore “all the rules for how to steal a dog” because “it is NOT a good idea” (169). Once Georgina throws off all notions of being a dog-stealing expert, she learns to be grateful for simple things such as having a home. O’Connor conveys her state of moral wholesomeness in the imagery of breathing in pure, naturally-scented air that smelled “like honeysuckle and new-mowed grass” rather than the contaminated “stink” of her former corruption (170). Here, O’Connor shows that contrary to Georgina’s feelings at the beginning of the novel, a clean conscience is a greater comfort than wealth or social inclusion.
