Old Yeller
Essay (hold on i need to sneeze ACHOO)
Old Yeller is a book by Fred Gipson that is about an old yeller dog who helps his family in many ways after being found. This story is in first person and is told by Travis, the main character. One morning, they find an old yeller dog. At first, Arliss and the dog build a relationship, while Travis watches them in disgust. Later on, when Travis brings Old Yeller to hunt with him, Travis realizes that the dog is tougher than he thought he would be. In the middle, a white-haired girl named Lisbeth enters the story. Travis and his mother thought she was weak and couldn’t do any work, but Bud Searcy says that she is tough and will pitch in her part. Bud turns out to be right when Travis and his mom find out that Lisbeth is very handy and can do a lot of work. Unfortunately, there’s a rabies (what they called hydrophobia in the book) outbreak in their area. While Old Yeller was attacking a mad wolf, he got bit in the neck and most likely got rabies. Mama told Travis that they must shoot him because if they don’t someone in their family would get rabies.
I think Travis did a pretty good job as the narrator, though he didn’t say much about the other characters. A pretty meaningless animal is let’s say, a chicken. Chickens aren’t so smart. But they do see and react. With this whole rabies epidemic in their neighborhood, the chickens must think that this is just a weird time of the year. When Lisbeth went over and helped feed them, they probably didn't think any different, besides the change of the person. Another animal, like a hog from the hog-attack scene, would probably think that the hydrophobia/rabies is probably no big difference since the hogs already seemed very crazy, as Travis described them.
Another character that is interesting is Bud Searcy. Travis described Bud as a very lazy and talkative person. However, his daughter, Lisbeth, is very handy and doesn’t “show off how good she can shoot”. Instead, she is very obedient and she can take care of orders on her own and voluntarily do work even when nobody told her to. Bud Searcy is really ill-mannered, while Lisbeth is very well-mannered. The weird connection between the two doesn’t match up, since Bud was Lisbeth’s father, and they don’t act alike in many different ways.
Other animals on their farm didn’t play a big part in the story, but Old Yeller did. If I were Old Yeller in the wolf scene, I would go in, just like the story. Many would think that it would be weird to pick a fight with a mad wolf, but Travis did take Old Yeller to hunt with him many times, and most of the time Travis brought a gun with him. Mama told Travis to bring the gun to her so she could kill the wolf, and Old Yeller must’ve seen it because he went with him. He attacked when Travis almost lost the gobbler, so he thought that it wouldn’t be too bad to charge at the wolf. Unfortunately, that led to the end of his life, which is pretty straight forward.
Different people/animals have different minds, all thinking their separate things. As a chicken, you’d probably be a clueless little bird. As Lisbeth, you’d probably think that your ill-mannered father made you help a neighbor when she could get rabid if Mama didn’t make Travis kill Old Yeller. As Old Yeller, you’d probably think you ended your life pretty well. If you were somehow back in time with them, how would you think? Would you be a fighter or would you be stuck in your house like now?


Word count: 640