Genre
Young adult
Setting and Context
The novel is set in rural Vermont.
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narrative
Tone and Mood
The tone is chatty, and the mood is lighthearted.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is Mathew, and the antagonist is his mother.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is between Mathew and his mother because when she returns home, she asks him to get Gather out of the house.
Climax
The climax comes when Gather runs into the woods and the community helps Mathew to bring his dog back.
Foreshadowing
Ian's mother's opioid addiction foreshadows her unproductive life after she is discharged from the hospital.
Understatement
Mathew downplays the size of his do when he says it can fit in a box.
Allusions
n/a
Imagery
Mathew describes the size of the dog's head to depict a sense of sight. Mathew says, "When I yell, half from the pain and at least half from the surprise of having a dog with a head bigger than your own come up on you like that, Gather, he just pulls his head back a little and looks at me."
Paradox
The main paradox is that when Ian’s mother returns, he gets angry instead of feeling excited. Ian is more concerned about the safety of his do than his mother is.
Parallelism
There is a parallelism between Terry's assumption of Gather and Ian's mother's decision about Gather's presence.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
Gather is a dog that has been given human abilities to communicate with Mathew and be his best companion.
