Every time Apple gets ready to announce the new iPhone, we remember why people are filled with hope for the future. But when we look outside our bubble—at famine, war, ethnic cleansing, drought, floods, you name it—things stop looking so hot. In There Is No Dog, Earth teeters on the edge of hope and hopelessness. Throughout the novel, the characters struggle with finding hope in a world that seems hopelessly damaged by a terrible God. In the end, somehow, they manage to find a little bit of hope in all the muck—and it's not even branded by Apple.
Questions About Dreams, Hopes, and Plans
- There are a few scenes in the novel that inspire hope in the characters. What are they? Why do they make them hopeful?
- There Is No Dog is full of hopes, dreams, and plans. Who are the biggest dreamers? Which hopes come true? Which ones don't?
- For most of the novel Earth is described as a hopeless place. What qualities make this true? Which qualities make this false?
Chew on This
In There Is No Dog, Earth and its inhabitants are hopeless. There is no point to all the suffering, and Rosoff suggests humans would be better off just giving up.
Even though life is difficult and God is capricious, humans in There Is No Dog never give up hope.