Tyler Grubb

Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Van Tuyl, Jocelyn

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

This thesis examines what female characters’ relationships with their pets reveal about their romantic relationships with men in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century fictions by Colette, Virginia Woolf, and Émile Zola. These interspecies connections reveal the amount of agency that the female protagonists have both in their romantic relationships and in society at large. Analyzing interactions between human characters and their animal companions is a unique way to explore topics such as a woman’s level of independence or the viability of a romantic relationship. In Colette’s The Vagabond and Woolf’s Flush, pet dogs serve as proxies for the female protagonists; the differences in the ways the dogs function within the narratives correlate with the female protagonists’ varying views on marriage. In Zola’s Thérèse Raquin and Colette’s The Cat, marital tension in two failing marriages is revealed and exacerbated by the characters’ pet cats. Ultimately, these novels’ emphasis on animal companions challenges societal stereotypes about women and pets as tied to male dominance. The description of the connection–or lack thereof–between women and pets may elicit reader sympathy for the female protagonists and underscore the value of independence in women’s lives.

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