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Live Like a Dog Alone

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Live Like a Dog, Alone
By Fay Weldon. Summary. It is about two persons, who both live alone. The woman Miriam is fifty-five years old and lives alone. She is running a successful nursing agency. She suffers from heart trouble, so sometimes she has to go to the hospital.
The story takes place inside a taxi. Miriam is on her way home after a visit at the hospital. The taxi driver and Miriam talks. It is not a normal conversation between a driver and his costumer, but instead they talk about their personal life.
He seems depressed and unhappy with his life. He tells Miriam how he feels about living alone and his thoughts about it collides with the way Miriam feels.
During the ride, they both get aware of their different perspectives on their, in some point, similar life. That does somehow widen their horizons, and gives them a new awareness about the way they live.

Miriam and the way she lives

Miriam is fifty-five years old and lives alone, with no husband and children. She has been married once, but they did not have any children. She has a great career, within stress. Ironically, she is very stressed herself. That affects that she has to go to the hospital where her heart is stopped and then started over again, and that happens a lot.
I think that she basically is happy about her life, even though she lives alone. Miriam is also an extremely caring person who needs to make sure that everybody is happy and satisfied, as you can see in the text "She felt duty-bound to cheer him up" and again "It was her instinct to cheer people up” But at the same time I think that she sometimes is very unhappy. I think that she regrets that she never had children, but she won't admit it, not even to herself. If you look closer at Miriam, I think you will see an insecure woman.

The title.
“Live Like a dog Alone” describes the taxi driver’s life situation in a

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