In When Will There Be Good News?, Atkinson uses dogs to symbolize faithful companionship and protection, particularly when humans fail to provide the same. Most often, this symbol works on a and direct level. For example, Jessica Mason’s dog, Scout, tries to protect the family from being killed by Andrew Decker, and, later, search dogs find Joanna Mason lost in the wheat field, saving her life. In adulthood, Joanna trusts the loyal German Shepherd, Sadie, with her own and the baby’s life. Later, Sadie proves herself faithful to Reggie as well, biting Billy to stop him from attacking his sister. Although Joanna and Reggie both face continuous trauma at the hands of other people, dogs like Scout and Sadie are ongoing representations of the good that still exists in the world. Additionally, The elderly terrier, Banjo, elicits “soppy, maternal love” from the prickly Ms. MacDonald, who is practically alone in the world. Extending the symbol to a metaphor for human behavior, Atkinson has Jackson Brodie frequently think of himself as a shepherding dog who “couldn’t rest until the flock was […] all gathered safely in.” At the end of the book, Jackson even sends Louise a Border Collie puppy, the anonymous gift tag reading, “A Faithful Friend.” After destroying a crime scene and lying about it, Jackson believes he can no longer be the friend that Louise (a cop) deserves, but the puppy (whom she names Jackson) symbolizes his continued watchful devotion in her life, in spite of his personal failings.
Dogs Quotes in When Will There Be Good News?
Of course, she should have taken Joseph with her, she should have snatched him from the buggy, or run with the buggy (Jessica would have). It didn’t matter that Joanna was only six years old, that she would never have managed running with the buggy and that the man would have caught her in seconds, that wasn’t the point. It would have been better to have tried to save the baby and been killed than not trying and living. It would have been better to have died with Jessica and her mother rather than being left behind without them. But she never thought about any of that, she just did as she was told.
“Run, Joanna, run,” her mother commanded. So she did.
It was funny, but now, thirty years later, the thing that drove her to distraction was that she couldn’t remember what the dog was called. And there was no one left to ask.
Reggie opened the front door and stuck her head out into the wind and rain. “A train’s crashed,” a man said to her. “Right out back.” Reggie picked up the phone in the hall and dialed 999. Dr. Hunter had told her that in an emergency everyone presumed that someone else would call. Reggie wasn’t going to be that person who presumed.
“Back soon,” she said to Banjo, pulling on her jacket. She picked up the big torch that Ms. MacDonald kept by the fuse box at the front door, put the house keys in her pocket, pulled the door shut behind her, and ran out into the rain. The world wasn’t going to end this night. Not if Reggie had anything to do with it.
What larks, Reggie!
This was the third dead body Reggie had seen in her life. Ms. MacDonald, Mum, and the soldier last night. Four if you counted Banjo. It seemed a lot for a person of so few years.
She’d identified a dead body, had her flat vandalized, and been threatened by violent idiots, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Reggie hoped the rest of the day would be more uneventful.
She couldn’t really remember any of them, but that didn’t stop them from still possessing a reality that was stronger than anything alive, apart from the baby, of course. They were the touchstone to which everything else must look and the exemplar compared to which everything else failed. Except for the baby.
She was bereft, her whole life an act of bereavement, longing for something that she could no longer remember. Sometimes in the night, in dreams, she heard their old dog barking and it brought back a memory of grief so raw that it led her to wonder about killing the baby, and then herself, both of them slipping away on something as peaceful as poppies so that nothing hideous could ever happen to him. A contingency plan for when you were cornered, for when you couldn’t run.
Dogs Symbol Timeline in When Will There Be Good News?
