Obsessions

All of us, at times, become obsessed with small purposes, goals or activities. On one level, Dog of the South can be seen as a tale of obsessions, which individuals cannot discard even long after they have shown to be unproductive and pointless. Ray is obsessed with retrieving his property, so much so that he takes a trip he can ill afford and which will cost him his mother's savings bonds and time off from his college studies. Further, he is willing to take an old, mechanically unsound vehicle, which may or may not actually make the journey.

Reo Symes is obsessed with ill-begotten schemes, convinced that the next one will result in great wealth. Even though every scheme he has devised has been a miserable failure and has resulted in the loss of his medical license and trouble with the authorities, he continues to plot and plan...