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Cover of 畜犬談 (Chikukendan)

Upper intermediate · JLPT N2

畜犬談Chikukendan — My Case Against Dogs

by Dazai Osamu (太宰治, 1909–1948)

  • JLPT N2
  • 12,151 characters
  • 8 parts
  • about 101 minutes

畜犬談 is a comic first-person story told as a mock essay. A self-declared dog-hater explains, at great length and with pretend-scholarly gravity, why dogs are dangerous and contemptible. He lives with his wife in a rented cottage on the edge of Kōfu while they wait to move to Mitaka near Tokyo. To survive the town's many stray dogs, he devises a cowardly strategy, and he ends up adopted by a scruffy black puppy he is too frightened to turn away. The puppy, Pochi, grows up, picks fights and falls ill, and he becomes a bigger problem as moving day approaches. The humour comes from the gap between the narrator's grand oratory, addressed to 'gentlemen' (諸君), and the pettiness and timidity he keeps admitting. For learners, part of the pleasure is watching that pose crack. The challenge is the register. Long sentences, four-character compounds and classical-flavoured forms such as ぬ, べし, ごとく and ざるを得ない sit alongside casual dialogue between husband and wife. At about 12,000 characters in eight parts, the story is a manageable length for an N2-level reader willing to work through some dense passages.

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Contents

  1. A Solemn Warning Against DogsThe narrator declares that he is certain he will one day be bitten by a dog, and he denounces dogs as ferocious beasts that owners foolishly pamper and let roam free. As proof, he tells how a friend was bitten without provocation last autumn and had to endure three weeks of rabies injections. He imagines the savage revenge he would have taken on the dog, and hearing of his friend's misfortune brings his long-standing hatred of dogs to its peak.
  2. A Town Overrun with DogsThe narrator, renting a tiny cottage on the edge of Kōfu, finds the town teeming with mongrel dogs and devises a cowardly plan to stay safe: smiling, humming nursery songs, getting haircuts and giving up his walking stick. The plan works too well, and the dogs come to like him and follow him around. Furious, he launches into a grand tirade against dogs as servile, treacherous creatures, unlike the free and cheerful sparrow, and admits that he hates them partly because they remind him of himself.
  3. The Black Puppy Moves InOut on a walk past the regimental parade ground, the narrator is trailed by stray dogs as usual, but one tiny, scruffy black puppy follows him all the way home. Too afraid to drive it off roughly, he tries to placate it with sweets, and it settles into his house for good. Although he nursed it from a starving foundling into a healthy dog, named Pochi, he still cannot feel at ease with it, and complains that it repays him by chewing clogs and dragging the laundry through the mud.
  4. An Ugly Shadow with a Taste for BattlePochi grows into a long-bodied, short-legged, turtle-like dog who follows the narrator everywhere and embarrasses him in public. He then starts picking fights with every dog he meets, until a huge German shepherd toys with him and leaves him timid. The narrator says he detests dogfights and fears and loathes Pochi, and he imagines the enemy dog in such a fight turning on him instead.
  5. A Cringing Dog and a Plan to Abandon HimPochi loses his fighting spirit and turns servile and fawning, which disgusts the narrator even more, while his wife stays indifferent. In July the couple find a house being built in Mitaka and prepare to move. The narrator, who keeps Pochi only out of fear of the dog's revenge, resolves to 'forget' him when they leave, though he worries a little about a curse should the dog starve.
  6. A Plague of Mange and DelaysPochi is to be left behind when the couple move. Then he catches a hideous, foul-smelling skin disease, and the wife begs the narrator to kill him. As the new house in Mitaka is delayed again and again, the narrator's frustration grows until dog fleas reach his own nightclothes and he secretly resolves to act.
  7. A Dawn Walk to the Parade GroundDriven half-mad by heat, boredom and sleeplessness, the narrator decides to poison Pochi and buys beef and a drug. At dawn he leads the dog to the parade ground, where Pochi first defeats a huge red dog that attacks him from behind. The narrator then drops the poisoned beef at his feet and listens as Pochi eats it.
  8. The Poison Fails, and Pochi Is SparedThe narrator walks home through a thick morning fog and finds that Pochi is still alive and following him, because the poison did not work. He accepts this at once. He tells his wife that artists should be the friends of the weak, decides to take Pochi to Tokyo, and asks for eggs to feed him, while his wife looks far from pleased.

Before you read

  • Learn the classical-flavoured forms before you start, because they carry the mock-heroic tone. ぬ is a negative equal to ない (知らぬ = 知らない). 〜のごとく means 'like / as if'. 〜べきである means 'ought to'. 〜ざるを得ない means 'cannot help but'. When you see them, read them as the narrator puffing himself up, not as real archaism.
  • The narrator's tirades often run to long sentences with the main verb at the very end. Find the final verb first, then work back through the clauses separated by commas. Look out for 〜ば〜ほど ('the more…, the more…') and 〜にちがいない ('must surely be'), which structure many of his arguments.
  • Watch for 〜（よ）うものなら ('if one were ever to…, then [something terrible]'). It sets up his exaggerated fears about what dogs might do, and 〜んばかり ('as if about to…') often comes with it in his descriptions of dogs.
  • Words for dogs and fear recur constantly, so they are worth learning early: 犬, 畜犬, 野良犬 (stray dog), かむ (to bite), 狂犬病 (rabies), 吠える (to bark) and 練兵場 (parade ground, where key scenes take place). Pochi's skin disease (皮膚病) dominates the later parts.
  • Switch gears for the dialogue, which is short and casual. The narrator uses plain male speech, and his wife uses soft plain or semi-polite speech. Her few lines carry a lot of weight, especially in Parts 6 and 8, so pay attention to her tone.

Words to know

The most useful words from the notes across the story.

WordMeaningJLPT
家主やぬしlandlord, owner of a rented houseN2
速達そくたつexpress mail, special deliveryN2
猛獣もうじゅうferocious beast, beast of preyThe narrator's key word for dogs. 猛 'fierce' + 獣 'beast'.—
油断ゆだんcarelessness, letting one's guard downCommon in the saying 油断大敵 'carelessness is the great enemy'.N2
駄犬だけんmongrel; worthless dogThe prefix 駄 means 'inferior, worthless', as in 駄目 and 駄作.—
卑屈ひくつservility; spinelessnessA な-adjective used here as a noun.—
顔色を伺いかおいろをうかがうto watch someone's face for their mooddictionary form: 顔色を伺うDescribes anxiously trying to please someone.—
皮膚病ひふびょうskin disease (here, mange)皮膚 = skin + 病 = illness.—
縁の下えんのしたthe space under the veranda or floor of a houseTraditional houses are raised, so animals can shelter underneath.—
誤解ごかいmisunderstanding誤解する: to misunderstand or mistake one thing for another.N3
用心ようじんcaution, care用心する: to be careful or on guard.N3
霧きりfog, mistN3
ぼんやりぼんやりdimly, faintly, vaguelyAlso used for a person who is absent-minded.N3
味方みかたally, someone on one's sideThe opposite is 敵 (てき), 'enemy'.N3
怠ろうおこたるto neglect, to fail to dodictionary form: 怠るN2

Plot summary

Show the full summary (contains spoilers)

The narrator is sure he will one day be bitten and hates dogs. Yet in Kōfu he behaves so meekly toward them that they grow fond of him. A small black stray follows him home, and he is too scared to chase it away, so he raises it as Pochi. Pochi picks fights until a German shepherd cows him, and then he turns fawning. The couple find a house in Mitaka, and the narrator plans to leave Pochi behind. Pochi then catches a foul skin disease, and the wife begs her husband to kill him. The move keeps being delayed, and fleas reach the narrator's bedding. Worn down, he buys beef and poison. At dawn on the parade ground, he drops the poisoned meat and Pochi eats it. The poison fails, and Pochi follows him home. Declaring that artists should befriend the weak, the narrator decides to take Pochi to Tokyo.

About the author

Dazai Osamu (太宰治) was the pen name of Tsushima Shūji, born into a wealthy landowning family in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan. He studied French literature at Tokyo Imperial University but did not graduate, devoting himself instead to writing. He is best known for the novels The Setting Sun (斜陽) and No Longer Human (人間失格), which draw heavily on his own troubled life. Much of his work is dark and confessional. Keep Running, Melos shows a brighter, more straightforwardly heroic side of his writing. He died by suicide in 1948.

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