How to Steal a Dog

“I stood up there at the bus stop pretending like I still lived in Apartment 3B. I pretended like I didn’t have mustard on my shirt from the day before. I pretended like I hadn’t washed my hair in the bathroom of the Texaco gas station that very morning. And I pretended like my daddy hadn’t just waltzed off and left us with nothing but three rolls of quarters and a mayonnaise jar full of wadded-up dollar bills.”

Even prior to stealing a dog and embarking on her life of deception, Georgina has pretended that her reality is different from the intolerable truth. She stands at the bus station in the style of her old life and sets about denying the changes that have come about since her father’s sudden departure. O’Connor builds suspense by starting with the practical details, such as no longer living in the apartment and washing hair in a gas station, before building up to the devastating reason behind these bizarre changes. Georgina’s only way of coping with these changes is to pretend they have not happened in the first place.

“If there was ever a time I wished the earth would open and swallow me whole, it was when I turned around and saw Luanne looking at me and Toby and that car and all. I could see her thoughts just plain as day right on her face.”

This passage shows the instrumental role that Luanne and her judgment play in Georgina’s decision to steal a dog. For Georgina, seeing her predicament through Luanne’s eyes is almost worse than the predicament itself, as O’Connor shows the role of social snobbery in exacerbating the pain of poverty. Although Georgina cannot be exactly sure what Luanne is thinking, she projects her own negative thoughts about someone living in a car onto the situation.