Flush: A Biography

Flush tells the story of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning by exploring the life of her cocker spaniel named Flush. In this way, Flush is a reflective novel: It examines one life in the reflection of another. The format of the novel is an experimental biography, in which one biography (that of Elizabeth) is contained within another (that of Flush). To achieve this, however, the novel requires some degree of knowledge among its readers about Elizabeth’s life. It employs dramatic irony since the details of Elizabeth’s story are heightened through readers’ foreknowledge of her strained relationship with her overbearing father, her secret marriage, and her interest in Italian politics. Since the novel is written from the perspective of Flush, such information is limited in the actual narrative since a dog does not have access to this type of information. However, for readers who already know some details about Elizabeth’s life, Flush’s description of her praying father or the flash of her wedding band hold deeper significance. To Flush, however, they are disjointed and confusing images. Despite focusing on the world through Flush’s eyes, Elizabeth is the true subject of Flush, and the details provided in the novel develop what is commonly known about her life.