Marley And Me Sparknotes

Marley & Me has become a household-known story. Everybody knows the loving story of a man by the name of John Grogan and his loveable labrador retriever, Marley. The whole reason and thesis Grogan had for writing this story was to remember all the mischief of getting a playful dog and starting a family. The whole book is an ode to what Grogan calls “life and love with the world’s worst dog”.
Throughout the story of Marley’s life experience with the Grogan family, he had a lot of interesting things happen. Some would include swallowing certain items, tearing up furniture, and being blatantly untrainable; those are just to name a few. A prime example of Marley’s troublesome behavior was when he started his obedience classes. Grogan and his

wife, Jenny, decided that Marley was beginning to become too hyper for comfort. John wrote about this memory as a painful one. Before they even got out of the car, he already had a bad feeling about what Marley was going to do. Once they got out, Marley immediately darted to the rest of the dogs, thus causing his spiraling domino effect of bad behavior. After Marley was lassoed to his spot, the worse part was yet to come. Throughout the class, the instructor set John and Marley up as the prime example of not what to do. “That, class, is an example of a dog that has been allowed to think he is the alpha male of his pack. Right now, he’s in charge”, this is what the instructor responded with after Marley’s barreling entrance, (Grogan 61). Eventually, the instructor had had enough of Marley’s antics after John and Jenny’s desperate tries. She took the leash and walked the adrenaline-driven dog shot off with her. After being proved untrainable, Marley was returned to his owners and was kicked out of the class.
Not only is Marley described as hyper and energetic in the book, Grogan also describes him as destructive.

One of the ways that he demolishes things is by eating them. On Jenny’s birthday, John got her an eighteen-karat gold necklace. Of course, on the same day, it disappears. After strenuous searching, they discover Marley, and more importantly, a piece of gold chain hanging from his mouth. Grogan describes the horror that washes over them as they soon realize the reality that a very expensive necklace hangs in the hands, or paws, of a frisky and playful lab. They then begin to circle in on Marley, ready to reach for the pricey piece of jewelry. As they lunge for him, Marley quickly swallows the evidence. The necklace is then lost to the point of only one possible and frankly disgusting, return. Grogan says, “Marley may have won the battle, but we knew it was just a matter of time before we won the war. Nature’s call was on our side. Sooner or later, what went in had to come out. As disgusting as the thought was, I knew...I would find it….Grossed out or not, I was going in” (Grogan 100). After four days of unsatisfying “digging”, John had finally found the

necklace.
All throughout the time John had Marley, he was always playful and never serious, and even if he was, he would always snap back to his usual puppy side of him.

John wrote that he never saw serious behavior in Marley until one night. A scream erupted through the night, waking everyone in the neighborhood. Marley followed closely behind John as he went out to go help. He soon discovered that a young woman had been stabbed in her driveway. A man had come up to her while she was in her car and told her not to do anything, she screamed, and then came the current result. She was hunched over in the driveway in pain when John and Marley found her. John cradled her on the ground and waited with her for help to arrive. While they were waiting, John noticed something peculiar about Marley. His once frantic and playful pup and become an aggressive guard dog. John noted that this behavior had never occurred before in his beloved Marley. “When I looked up, there he stood, ten feet from us, facing the street, in a determined, bull-like crouch I had never seen before. It was a fighter’s stance. His muscles bulged at the neck; his jaw was clenched; the fur between his shoulder blades bristled….If the armed assailant returned, he would have to get past my dog first” (Grogan 118-19). At this point, John realized how much of a best friend Marley really was.
John’s life with Marley was a long one, and he is more qualified than anyone to tell the story. Not only did he have Marley as his dog, he

experienced all of these things that he wrote. Since he was a columnist and editor for several papers and magazines, he didn’t just create a story from his writing skills. John took his personal and heartfelt relationship with his best friend and put it down on paper.
In his story, Grogan makes it important to separate facts from opinions. Since it is an autobiography of him and Marley, it is mostly facts. However, whenever he didn’t directly experience a situation, he made clear of it. Throughout the journey, he looked at it from both his and Marley’s point of view, such as when thunderstorms came around. He always had a certain slant towards Marley’s side of things, vs Jenny’s. After all, Marley is his best friend.