Amber-Lynn Rivera
Per.5 8/18/12
Another reason why I don’t keep a gun in the house “The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. The poem by Billy Collins is depicted by an easily irritable man who tries anything to get away from the sound of a dog barking. He tries closing all the windows, turning up his music but still he hears the dog. Now the dog is in his head, as if he is thinking about a memory of watching Beethoven play. The man would do anything to make it stop. The types of imagery used in this poem is Visual imagery when the writer describes how he is picturing the dog in the oboe section barking as if he is supposed to be there. Then Collins also describes the dog as “his head raised confidently as if Beethoven had included a part for barking dog”. And lastly Collins also uses auditory imagery when saying the dog is “barking in a high rhythmic bark”. This conveys the meaning of the poem because it suggests the irritation level of the writer because of the dog has affected what he was thinking of. The writer uses a lot of figurative language in the poem. Collins uses a hyperbole when he says the neighbors must switch him on when they leave because he doesn’t stop barking. He uses repetition when expressing that the dog keeps barking though he is playing his music loud. Collins also uses an allusion when he talks about the dog being a part of the orchestra. By using this language Collins infers that he has had so much of this constant barking that all he can even think about is the dog and how the sound of the dog interrupts his music. The point of view of the narrator is desperate. He wants to hear anything