The speaker in Edward Taylor’s “Loyalty” is a dog—reborn as a family pet and now the General’s chauffeur, PR man, and closest advisor. He boasts about his thirty-five-dollar raise, his “totalitarian approach” that boosted the General’s popularity, his work reducing the population and erasing the bourgeoisie—as if describing routine office perks. A mystic walks over him as if he were a bed of hot coals, yet he shrugs this off as “par for the course” and slides into a bizarrely chipper golf metaphor. He suggests playing the back nine “in a sacred rage,” teeing off over a doomed community, putting thunderously. The deadpan tone frames atrocity as a game. Underneath the grotesque humor is a fierce, wounded devotion. When the General finally holds a pistol to his little doggy head and recites a poem about his many weaknesses, the dog says he “loved him so.” The mood is queasy and surreal—absurdity and dread tangled together. It’s a portrait of complicity dressed as loyalty, where love and violence become indistinguishable.
Loyalty — Summary
This is the hardest part: When I came back to life I was a good family dog and not too friendly to strangers. I got a thirty-five dollar raise in salary, and through the pea-soup fogs I drove the General, and introduced him at rallies. I had a totalitarian approach and was a massive boost to his popularity. I did my best to reduce the number of people. The local bourgeoisie did not exist. One of them was a mystic and walked right over me as if I were a bed of hot coals. This is par for the course- I will be employing sundry golf metaphors henceforth, because a dog, best friend and chief advisor to the General, should. While dining with the General I said, "Let's play the back nine in a sacred rage. Let's tee-off over the foredoomed community and putt ourselves thunderously, touching bottom." He drank it all in, rugged and dusky. I think I know what he was thinking. He held his automatic to my little head and recited a poem about my many weaknesses, for which I loved him so.