"Dog, what's it like outside?”: An analysis of motivation in “The emissary”

Students: Ricchezza Betina and Vellere Laura Paola

“And lying there, Dog told as he always told. Lying there, Martin found autumn as in the old days before sickness bleached him white on his bed. Here was his contact…”

What happens when adolescents have to face problems in life? Are they mature enough to solve problems by themselves? Or do they need any stimulus from the outside world? Motivation is the key word when adolescents need to pursue goals or dreams. In “The emissary” by Ray Bradbury, motivation appears to drive a young boy during a critical period of his life. The main character is a sick boy who is lying on a bed and his loyal friend and his contact with the world is Dog.

Martin, the character in this story, is confined to bed because of his illness. Dog brings him flowers and objects from the streets. He tells Martin about the weather and the seasons by the way his fur feels and smells. In addition to the dog´s company, Miss Haight is another important character that incentivises Martin. She is his teacher from school. She visits Martin every day. She bakes Martin orange-iced cupcakes, brings him library books and they play dominoes and chess together. They talk and never stop talking. Above all she can read and interpret Dog. Miss Haight is Martin´s favourite visitor. In this way, Martin finds the motivation to start a new day despite of his situation.

According to Maslow´s theory of motivation (motivation and personality, 1987), lack of motivation brings lack of confidence, lack of problem-solving, low self-esteem and no achievement. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that “The emissary” can be used to carry out a debate among adolescent students about how motivation helps them to explore and learn more and more every day.

Students and experiments in human beings have shown that motivation is one specific personality factor in human behaviour. But what is exactly motivation? and what are the subcomponents of motivation?. As Maslow suggests, motivation is thought as an inner drive, impulse or emotion that moves one to do something. More specifically, human beings universally have needs or drives that are more or less innate, yet their intensity is environmentally conditioned. According to Ausubel (1968), six desires or needs of human organisms are commonly identified which undergird the construct of motivation:

• The need for exploration (for seeing, for probing the unknown)
• The need for manipulation (for operating on the environment)
• The need for activity (for movement)
• The need for stimulation (to be stimulated by the environment and others)
• The need for knowledge
• The need for ego enhancement (to be accepted and approved by others)

The six needs listed above are especially relevant for human beings in order to be motivated. To what extent can an adolescent, who is confined to bed, fulfil all this needs?

As regards the short story, Martin fulfils his needs such as the need for stimulation and knowledge when he learns about the world through his dog. He explores the unknown; he is able to touch and smell the environment discovering the weather and seasons:

“And Dog settled to warm Martin's body with all the bonfires and subtle burnings of the season, to fill the room with soft or heavy, wet or dry odors of far-traveling. In spring, he smel-led of lilac, iris, lawn-mowered grass; in summer, ice-cream-mustached, he came pungent with firecracker, Roman candle, pin wheel, baked by the sun.”

Martin finds the stimulation he needs and he is eager to know and learn things not only because of Dog but because of the love and company he receives from his teacher, Miss Haight, who tells what is left untold by Dog about the world. Martin feels that everything he is and his own world is going to disappear when his mother warns him she will lock up the dog. Dog is always digging places. Martin´s mother is upset because she is always receiving complaints from her neighbours because Dog digs holes in their gardens.  

“… If he doesn't behave he'll be locked up."
Martin looked at this woman as if she were a stranger."Oh, you wouldn't do that! How would I learn anything? How would I find things out if Dog didn't tell me?"

This passage shows that Martin feels he will lose his contact with the outside world. Due to this fact, he will lose his need for exploration, for manipulation, for knowledge, that is to say, he will lose his motivation and if a person is not motivated he will not be able to continue pursuing his goals or dreams. Furthermore, Miss Haight dies in a car accident and Martin realizes that the world is untouchable for him. He loses any kind of connection with the outside world. He loses his need for stimulation; to be stimulated from the environment and others.

According to analysis made about “The emissary”, it is possible to use this story in order to carry out a debate among adolescents and let them express critically what they think about motivation in their lives. As a consequence, they not only will be able to analyse motivation in Martin´s complex case, but they will also be able to emphasize with the character and analyse how motivation is present whenever they have dreams or goals to be fulfilled.      

References:
 Ausubel, David. Theory about motivation. Accessed 05/07-/2012 http://es.scribd.com/doc/27043905/Ausubel-Theory. http://education.gsu.edu/ctl/FLC/Foundations/Overview.pdf
 Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003. Accessed =5/07/2012. http://www.thefreedictionary.com
 Maslow, Abraham. (1987) Motivation and personality. http://www.chaight.com/Wk%2015%20E205B%20Maslow%20-%20Human%20Motivation.pdf. Accessed 05/07/2012.
 Maslow, Abraham. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  Accessed 05/07/2012http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs.