Langston Hughes’s short story “Little Dog”, part of the 1934 short story collection
The Ways of White Folks, discusses meaningful intersections of race, class, and gender by tracing the development of Miss Briggs, a solitary white spinster who works as a bookkeeper for the industrial firm Wilkins and Bryant, a supplier of wood and coal. After the death of her mother six years earlier, Miss Briggs had had no real friends. The prospect of marriage also had not seemed promising: “Miss Briggs, tall and rail-like, found herself left husband-less at an age when youth had gone” (24). Alone at forty-five, she finds herself staring out of the window of her flat at those who, unlike her, seem to have found a sense of belonging through human companionship.
Yet Miss Briggs’s defining
2009 words
Citation: Helbig, Madison. "Little Dog". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 January 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40970, accessed 24 November 2024.]
