Notes on the Fifth Tale

To most readers it will be easy, after reading this tale, to accept Rover’s theory that Man is set up deliberately as the antithesis of everything the Dogs stand for, a sort of mythical straw-man, a sociological fable.
This is underlined by the recurring evidence of Man’s aimlessness, his constant running hither and yon, his grasping at a way of life which constantly eludes him, possibly because he never knows exactly what he wants.

Clifford D. Simak, „City“ [Notes on the Fifth Tale], 1952