The Manx Cat in 'A Room of One's Own'
The Manx Cat in 'A Room of One's Own'

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the Manx cat as a zoometaphor and subject in Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own (1929). As suggested by Woolf, both cats and women occupy a subordinate position in the hierarchy ruled by the masculine-coded human. The story of the Manx cat is an allegory of the exclusion of women from the systems of education and the history of literature, but in the essay cats are also depicted as subjects in their own right, victimized by humans. The analogy established between cats and women can be read as a reflection on Darwin’s theory of evolution, which effectively erased the differences between humans and animals. The unusual physical appearance of the Manx cat, characteristically lacking a tail, also reminds the narrator of the Great War that still required working through in Woolf’s post-war society.

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