Marley And Me Summary

Submitted By stella_13
Words: 659
Pages: 3

1. Title of work: Marley and Me

2. Author: John Grogan Date of Publication: October 18, 2005

3. Country of author: United States of America

4. # of pages in the book: 289; # of pages read: 289

5. In a four to six sentence paragraph summarize the plot, demonstrate you knowledge of plot by identifying the five stages of plot: exposition, complications, crisis decision, climax (both physical and mental), and denouement. Incorporate the terms into your paragraph summary. Bold the five terms.

The exposition of Marley and Me takes place in Palm Beach, South Florida in 1991. John and Jenny Grogan are newly married and have decided to buy a dog. The complications that come with this decision include, but are not limited to, Marley the dog’s inability to be trained, Marley’s recklessness, and the time and money that have to be invested into repairing everything he destroys. Throughout all of these problems the Grogans continue to love Marley but are forced to make a crisis decision when Marley gets a potentially fatal illness giving him a 1% chance of survival. The climax of this story occurs when John makes the decision the put Marley to sleep because he is in pain due to the illness. The denouement takes place while the Grogan family is coping with Marley’s death and decides to possibly buy a new dog with the same behavior as Marley.

6. In one sentence, state a major theme, the author’s perspective, on a key issue.
Subject + author’s opinion on an abstract subject. Provide concrete detail (quotations) and commentary to support your opinion. Be specific, no vague generalities. Write one – eight sentence body paragraph discussing theme. Include two quotations.

The novel Marley and Me by John Grogan is about the way a pet can shape your life and reveals that through all the bad tendencies of an animal the good always shines through in the end. “…he helped to shape us, as well – as a couple, as parents, as animal lovers, as adults.” (Grogan 287) The existence of Marley forced the Grogan’s to create a lifestyle that would involve him. Without Marley, John and Jenny Grogan would not have faced the difficulties of owning a pet and would not have become the people they are today. “Honestly, he might well have been the world’s worst-behaved dog. Yet he intuitively grasped from the start what it meant o be man’s best friend.” John Grogan seems to be saying that even though Marley had awful behavior his loyalty and love toward his family could not be swayed. Marley’s bad