“It was all a matter of hints and shades”: Reconceptualizing Virginia Woolf’s Flush

Abstract

This thesis aims to reconceptualize Virginia Woolf’s 1933 novel Flush: A Biography. The novel has been largely ignored by the intelligentsia due to its subject matter: a dog. Although various critics have attempted to salvage its status by reconstructing it as an allegory for feminism, politics, and class; and many have pondered whether the novel is truly the story about the eponymous character or Miss Barrett, his human companion, this text intends to reconceptualize the novel through the scope of feminist theory, Disability Studies, and Critical Animal Studies in order to demonstrate how the novel is a posthuman dual Bildungsroman. Other factors, such as Woolf’s true motives when creating Flush, will also be considered. In the end, this reconceptualization aspires to create a new era of discourse regarding Flush, one which is inclusive and will confront its current status outside the canon.