This short story is about a family's efforts to escape a life fraught with danger. They hope to escape to America, a country which, to them, represents freedom, or liberty. The implication is that the family do not have much freedom in their own country. Indeed, their house is is...
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fitted with secret listening devices and so they are not even free to express themselves in their own home.
In the story, there is a dog named Liberty, who is a favorite of one of the daughters in the family. The mother of the family, however, is convinced that the dog will cause trouble, and indeed he does. The dog eats all of the mother's orchids, knocks things off the coffee table with his tail, and leaves his muddy footprints on the couch. This represents how liberty, or freedom, is not easily managed.
Later in the story, as the family have to leave for America, the aforementioned daughter has no option but to leave the dog behind. She "burst(s) into tears" and thinks that "a world without Liberty (will) break (her) heart." This moment represents the idea that liberty, or freedom, involves sacrifices.
In summary, the main idea of the story seems to be that liberty is not easy and involves sacrifices. This idea is represented by the dog, the "black-and-white-speckled electric current of energy" that the father of the family brings home at the beginning of the story.