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Countess Alexandra
The British author Virginia Woolf is Plautus’s third owner in the story “Plautus: A Memoir.” Plautus adores Woolf because Woolf genuinely cares about animals and prioritizes Plautus’s well-being. She’s shocked, for instance, when she discovers that Alexandra’s husband carved Tolstoy’s last words into Plautus’s shell, as she knows this is painful for the tortoise. Woolf also earns Plautus’s affection by banning tortoiseshell objects in Plautus’s presence and by writing Flush: A Biography, a biography of Elizabeth Barrett’s cocker spaniel told from the dog’s perspective. Woolf regularly takes Plautus with her when she gives readings from the biography. Plautus’s time with Woolf comes to an end during World War II, when Woolf commits suicide. Woolf leaves Plautus to George Orwell, believing he’ll care for her.
Virginia Woolf Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Virginia Woolf or refer to Virginia Woolf. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Plautus: A Memoir of My Years on Earth and Last Days in Space: Soul of Tortoise
Quotes
And with a glance at me—a kind of tribute, I’d like to think—she would read out my favorite paragraph of the whole book, a moment that does justice to both the poet Elizabeth and her dog Flush by showing them as equals in their inability to ever fully understand each other: not so different then, from a biographer trying to get into the skin of her subject.
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Virginia Woolf Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Virginia Woolf or refer to Virginia Woolf. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Plautus: A Memoir of My Years on Earth and Last Days in Space: Soul of Tortoise
Quotes
And with a glance at me—a kind of tribute, I’d like to think—she would read out my favorite paragraph of the whole book, a moment that does justice to both the poet Elizabeth and her dog Flush by showing them as equals in their inability to ever fully understand each other: not so different then, from a biographer trying to get into the skin of her subject.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
