39 pages • 1 hour read
Virginia WoolfFlush: A Biography
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1933A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Hooded Man”
Flush is very empathetic. With Elizabeth, he comes to prefer the quiet of the dark room to the loudness of the outside world. He becomes reflective and attuned to her moods. She loves Flush, and Flush loves her. By January 1845, he is no longer a puppy but a dog of four or five years old. One evening, a letter arrives, and Flush notices a change in Elizabeth when she reads this letter; however, he cannot determine what the letter means. Similar letters begin to arrive more regularly, and Flush notices that Elizabeth anticipates the mailman’s regular delivery. Flush tries to imagine the author of these letters. He pictures a “cowled and hooded figure” (35).
Elizabeth begins to speak about meeting this hooded man in the near future. In spring, the man arrives. Elizabeth and this man immediately fall into a close and meaningful conversation. Flush feels excluded and lonely. After the man leaves, Elizabeth seems to suddenly remember Flush’s presence. The hooded man is Robert Browning, a writer who has been communicating romantically with Elizabeth for some time. Robert visits often, and Flush develops an intense jealousy of his closeness with Elizabeth, especially when he begins to speak with “a new urgency, a new pressure and energy” in his voice (41). Elizabeth seems afraid yet excited when he talks this way.
The seasons pass, and the affair continues, much to Flush’s displeasure. He is convinced that a “change [is] coming” and feels the need to do something drastic to regain Elizabeth’s favor (42). One day, he bites Robert’s leg. The attack does little harm, but after Robert leaves, Elizabeth punishes Flush by telling him that she will “never love him again” (43). Eventually, she allows Flush to apologize. Elizabeth and Robert joke about the jealous Flush, which only aggravates Flush further. Flush bites Robert once more. Robert brushes him off, but Wilson drags Flush away and—with Elizabeth’s approval—beats him. After two failed attacks on Robert, Flush reflects on his situation. He signals his willingness to accept Robert by eating the stale cakes that the hooded man brought to the house. He swears “to love Mr. Browning and not bite him for the future” (49). Flush is immediately rewarded with the love and affection of both Robert and Elizabeth. Not soon after, however, Flush’s life is thrown into turmoil when he is stolen.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Whitechapel”
Elizabeth and a friend venture out of the house on an errand. Flush is with them, but they forget to take the dog leash. While they are looking the other way, Flush is kidnapped. As wealthy and as secure as Wimpole Street might be, it is located next to much poorer neighborhoods. In the nearby neighborhood of Whitechapel, for example, people live in small, unhygienic quarters. Entire families are crammed into small rooms “above a cow-shed” (52), and in some buildings, landlords only permit the water to be turned on twice a week. This neighborhood is home to “thieves, beggars, and prostitutes” (53), as well as the poorest people, and the police can do little to stop the crime in the area. To make money, some of these residents often kidnap a beloved dog from the residents of Wimpole Street and ransom it back to the owners. When Flush is taken, Elizabeth is immediately ready to pay £10 for his return. If she does not pay, the rumors say, then she will receive a brown parcel containing “the head and paws of the dog” (54). Elizabeth dispatches her brother Henry to negotiate with Mr. Taylor, the alleged leader of the dog-kidnapping ring. Elizabeth instructs him to offer whatever is necessary for Flush’s return, even though she is desperately trying to save money for an unspecified reason.
Flush, meanwhile, does not understand what is happening to him. After he is taken, he is thrown into a dark, dilapidated room. Other dogs gnaw at bones and lap squalid water from a bucket. Each evening, “horrible monsters” enter the room. These criminals drink heavily and show off their ill-gotten wares. Flush waits in horror for Elizabeth to save him. On Wimpole Street, Elizabeth expects her brother to resolve the situation soon. As the days pass by, however, she becomes increasingly concerned. Meanwhile, Flush endures his confinement, feeling “forgotten and deserted” (59). Eventually, Elizabeth confronts her brother. He reluctantly admits that their father has told him not to pay the ransom so as not to encourage this sort of crime. Elizabeth is horrified, but many people side with her father. Robert also warns her not to give in to “blackmailers.” However, Elizabeth cannot abandon Flush. Despite her poor health, she takes a cab to Whitechapel with Wilson. Their cab is harassed by the “sinister” locals, but Elizabeth eventually reaches an agreement for Mr. Taylor to visit her the following day.
In the dark room, Flush begins to lose hope. Mr. Taylor visits Wimpole Street and demands six guineas for Flush’s return. Elizabeth is willing to pay this, but her brother Albert accosts Mr. Taylor, accusing him of being “a swindler, and a liar and a thief” (66). The two men argue, and Mr. Taylor leaves; Elizabeth fears that she will receive a bloody parcel in the mail. She is so insistent that Flush be saved, however, that her other brother, Septimus, offers to go to Mr. Taylor and pay the money. On September 5, Flush is dragged from the dark room. When the mailman rings the bell and the door is opened, Flush rushes in through the open door. The “dazed, bewildered dirty dog” runs straight to Elizabeth (67). He is traumatized by the experience and fearful of the opening door. Flush refuses to move from Elizabeth’s side. He watches as packages are delivered to her. Each time, she hides the package carefully. As she goes about her “secret business,” Flush notices that Elizabeth is wearing a gold band on one of the fingers of her left hand, suggesting that she is married. Flush wants everything to return to normal, yet everything seems to be different. In the dark of night, Wilson and Elizabeth sneak him out of the house with many of Elizabeth’s possessions. They exit the house on Wimpole Street under the cover of “tremendous silence.”
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
The novel portrays the courtship between Robert and Elizabeth entirely from Flush’s perspective. The dog finds the blossoming romance confusing, sudden, and threatening. Flush is a very empathetic dog and is deeply attached to Elizabeth, but he cannot comprehend important aspects of her life that give her pleasure, like her interest in writing or her love for Robert. Instead, Flush is jealous and suspicious of Robert, viewing him as a threat. This exemplifies the Modernist idea of the subjectivity of experience; Modernists, like Woolf, often explored the way that reality is subjective and that every individual experiences it differently. This, in turn, leads to feelings of isolation since individuals struggle to communicate their inner lives with one another. In this novel, the fact that Flush is a dog and Elizabeth is a human further emphasizes this disconnect that some Modernists believed permeated all relationships. Even though Elizabeth and Flush feel deep affection for one another, even their love cannot transcend their essential separateness.
Elizabeth’s romance with Robert also signals that she is slowly growing brave enough to pursue what she wants, highlighting The Importance of Self-Reflection and Connection in Identity Formation. Elizabeth and Robert form a connection through letters, and when they first meet, Flush notes that their conversation is characterized by “a new urgency, a new pressure and energy” (41). Their immediate rapport and Elizabeth’s growing fondness for Robert help her build up the courage to thwart her father’s wishes and marry without his consent. Elizabeth chooses her own path. In another example, Elizabeth is determined to get Flush back after his kidnapping. Again, her love for Flush triumphs over her hesitation to defy her father, her brothers, and even Robert. Despite her poor health, she goes into Whitechapel herself to negotiate for Flush’s release, which is a brave gesture for a woman of that era. She gets Flush back and, in doing so, demonstrates how much she has changed from the sickly young woman who would not leave her room. Her efforts show the extent to which she has asserted agency over her life. In choosing her own path, Elizabeth is growing into her own identity.
Flush’s experiences in Whitechapel call attention to the Class and Wealth Inequities in Victorian England. He is thrown into cramped, dilapidated quarters and is fed on scraps and stagnant water; this is a jarring contrast to his privileged life on Wimpole Street, and it calls attention to the differences between the wealthy upper classes and the impoverished areas of London. Flush is kidnapped by desperate people who will do anything to make a little money, showing how the poor resorted to illegal activities out of desperation. It also hints at their resentment because dogs like Flush lived in comfort and luxury while they did not even have access to water. Elizabeth is shocked at the squalor of Whitechapel when she goes there to negotiate Flush’s release, showing how the upper classes were often ignorant—and uninterested—in how the less privileged lived. Thus, this is a critique of the class and wealth divisions of the time.
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