This paper deals with the representation of gender in Virginia Woolf's work "Orlando: A Biography", which was published in 1928. With this novel, Woolf created a cross-genre play that does not follow ossified rules and shows a flexible gender system. Originally, the novel, which was written in the style of a biography, was intended as a parody of Vita Sackville-West's life, with whom Woolf had a long-standing affair, which will be revealed in this elaboration through Woolf's diary entries.
In the course of writing, however, the playful ideas developed into a serious critique of society's image, which is why this work is often considered a milestone for the second wave of feminism, as the androgynous main character Orlando changes her gender about halfway through the novel and becomes a woman from a man, which is why the topic of gender understanding is in the foreground. For this purpose, the concepts of gender and feminism are first introduced with the help of Judith Butler's "The Discomfort of Gender", before the focus is put on Virginia Woolf and her contribution to the feminist movement. For this purpose, Woolf's work "A Room to Herself" will be examined and her statements regarding androgyny and gender roles will be analyzed. Then, "Orlando" is presented as a stand-alone work and the concepts of the biographer, who is the narrator of the novel, and of time are emphasized, as they are fundamental to the overall understanding of the work.
In the analysis, different thematic areas are analyzed for their representation of gender. These include the change of identity as well as the social circumstances in which Orlando lives, the search for truth, love, the recurring symbol of the oak tree, which is associated with poetry, and Orlando's appearance, which Woolf punctuated with inserted images of the main character. In these chapters, Woolf casually presents how the understanding of gender evolves over time and how it is perceived by society. It is noticeable that Orlando himself always maintains his identity and his attempts to conform to societal expectations regarding gender roles fail. This makes it clear that gender is not a fixed category, but dynamic.
Zusammenfassung
2. The Concept of Gender and Feminism
3.1 Virginia Woolf as a Feminist
4.3 The Role of the Biographer
5. Representations of Gender in Orlando
5.1 Identity and Society
5.1.1 The Truth
5.2 Love
5.2.1 The Russian Princess
5.2.2. First Crisis
5.2.3 Archduchess Harriet / Archduke Harry
5.2.4. Second Crisis
5.2.5 Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine
5.3 The Oak Tree
5.3.1 The Gypsy Community
5.4 Looks
6. Conclusion
7. Works Cited
1.Introduction
Virginia Woolf has been one of the most influential female writers and feminists of the 20th century. E. M. Forster comments on Virginia Woolf as follows:
[S]he could seldom so portray a character that it was remembered afterwards on its own account, as Emma is remembered, for instance, or Dorothea, Causabon, or Sophia and Constance in The Old Wives’ Tale. . . . For the rest – it is impossible to maintain that here is an immortal portrait gallery. (245)
This also applies for her main character of the novel Orlando: A Biography[1], as the homonymous protagonist wakes up one day and has turned into a woman which is why Orlando can be considered the first transgender in British literature (Winterson). Due to this important aspect, Orlando is going to be referred to as “they” in this paper to emphasise that they are an androgynous person which means that they show characteristics of either gender. As the analyses will usually refer to Orlando as a person in general, this will allow for a more uniform access to their personality. When using quotes from the novel, the original pronouns will be adopted to underline the state of mind Orlando is in at a specific point in time.
When reading Orlando, it might be assumed that it simply depicts the life of Woolf’s same-sex lover Vita Sackville-West whom the mock biography is based on. Taking a closer look at this novel, however, it is noticeable that it is motivated by far more serious controversies that are hidden under the surface of the text. Due to its discourse on the themes of gender and androgyny, Orlando has played a crucial role in 20th century feminism. This shows that Woolf was not only an extraordinarily innovative writer who opened up new horizons for the next generation of female authors that were to come but she was also a strong supporter of modernist ideas.
Thus, this paper is going to analyse how gender is depicted in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando by firstly introducing the concept of gender and feminism with regards to Judith Butler’s theory on performativity of gender. Then, Woolf’s career and personal development will be examined as these have had a major impact on her view on gender. Thereafter, Woolf’s role as a feminist will be introduced with special reference to her popular work A Room of One’s Own which has majorly impacted the development of feminism. After this, the gist of Woolf’s novel will be provided in order to allow for a better understanding of the following analyses. Then, relevant background information about the production of Orlando will be presented. Since Orlando is known as a mock biography based on Vita Sackville-West’s life, the role of the biographer in Woolf’s novel will be further examined. Next, the concept of time in Orlando will be looked at, pointing out why it plays a crucial role in Woolf’s novel. After that, the different ways in which gender is represented in this work will be investigated. Starting with Orlando’s gender identity and the impact of society and the search for the truth, the differences between Orlando’s ways of thinking as a man and as a woman throughout the time with regards to gender roles in society will be presented in detail. This is followed by an analysis of their love life with regards to Orlando’s main lovers, namely the Russian Princess, the Archduchess Harriet/Archduke Harry as well as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine. In addition to this, the two crises regarding love and marriage Orlando goes through will be thematised in this chapter. Following this, the reoccurring theme of the oak tree will be elaborated on by also referring to Orlando’s encounter with the gender-neutral gypsies in Constantinople. After that, the importance of Orlando’s looks including clothing will be underlined by looking at portraits of Orlando provided in the novel. Finally, the findings of these chapters will be summarised and an outlook will be provided.
Therefore, this paper aims to explore the construction of gender in Orlando in various ways based on a multi-layered analysis of different concepts in order to provide an in-depth research on the extent to which Orlando takes on Butler’s understanding of gender. Thus, the goal of this paper is to reveal how Woolf presents the construction of gender utilising masculine and feminine stereotypes by focussing on the different representations of the ambiguous and multilateral gender themes in Orlando
2. The Concept of Gender and Feminism
Nowadays, the terms “sex” and “gender” are commonly used interchangeably. However, there are important differences that need to be highlighted. To begin with, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines gender as “the fact of being male or female, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences, not differences in biology” (650). Sex, on the other hand, is defined as “the state of being male or female” (1418). Therefore, sex only refers to the biological differences between people whereas gender also includes social and cultural influences. Thus, it can be concluded that the establishment of the term gender has helped to differentiate between a person’s bodily sex and the gender they identify as.
With her work “The Second Sex” the French writer, philosopher and feminist Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir created a milestone for the history of feminism as well as gender studies. In her book she challenged the superficial ideas of gender and society’s adaptation to these unspoken rules in an extremely critical way. She states that “[o]ne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (de Beauvoir 301). By this, de Beauvoir refers to the societal norms which we are meant to follow in order to be accepted by society. This process starts right after birth, meaning that if a child is born with female traits, the nurse declares it a girl which will have a major impact on this child’s future life as society has certain expectations for women as well as for men including their way to dress and to behave.
As the constructions of sex and gender increasingly gained importance in the 1990s, Judith Butler, an American gender philosopher and gender theorist, came up with a new perspective regarding gender construction. Inspired by de Beauvoir’s ideas, Judith Butler presents the concept of gender performance in her work “Gender Trouble”, published in 1990. Here, Butler argues that gender is not inborn but rather an illusion as it is “learned” through social norms and hence a societal phenomenon. Therefore, she calls for the destruction of gender and aims to achieve equality:
If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construction called “sex” is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. (9-10)
Thus, Butler criticises the idea of men and women only being identified as male or female as, in her opinion, there is no gender binarism. In addition to this, she states:
Because there is neither an “essence” that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender creates the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. href="https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/genderandsex/notes/butlerperformingfeminisms.html" target="bottomFrame">Performative Acts and Gender Constitution 273)
Butler consequently sees gender as a phenomenon that has occurred due to societal standards which are expected from women as well as men. These norms are still intact because people do adapt to them, which is why the binary system of gender as well as the idea of gender at all have not yet been overcome, she says. Furthermore, Butler argues that gender is not something that one is but something that one does and hence connected to a performative act. Moreover, she adds that “[t]here is no gender identity behind the expression of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Gender Trouble 34). Consequently, she highlights her notion that there is no gender itself but that it solely constituted by the way a person behaves which is the main idea of gender performance. Therefore, the following essay is going to explore the concept of gender presented in Woolf’s Orlando on the basis of Butler’s work.
In an interview about her work, Judith Butler was asked what she considered to be misrepresented the most about her theories and why she thought that was, she replied:
I do know that some people believe that I see gender as a “choice” rather than as an essential and firmly fixed sense of self. My view is actually not that. No matter whether one feels one’s gendered and sexed reality to be firmly fixed or less so, every person should have the right to determine the legal and linguistic terms of their embodied lives. So whether one wants to be free to live out a “hard-wired” sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization – and with full institutional and community support. That is most important in my view. (Williams)
Hence, Butler’s argumentation is not about being able to choose freely which gender to belong to but about having the right to live out the sense of gender one identifies with without having to manage any kind of persecution. Consequently, she highlights her notion that there is no gender itself but that it is solely constituted by the way a person behaves which is the main idea of gender performance. This idea is illustrated by considering Monique Wittig, a French writer and feminist theorist, who argues that, in fact, only the feminine gender exists:
Gender is the linguistic index of the political opposition between the sexes. Gender is used here in the singular because indeed there are not two genders. There is only one: the feminine, the “masculine” not being a gender. For the masculine is not the masculine, but the general. (64)
Wittig aims to deconstruct gender in order to achieve equality between men and women and at the same time emphasises that there is a strong connection between the concepts of gender and feminism. Wittig’s point of view can also be applied to the ongoing discussion of gender-neutral language. Prewitt-Freilino, Caswell and Laasko conducted a study concerning languages that imply different levels of gendering and concluded that countries in which a more gendered language is spoken have not achieved a high level of gender equality (279). In German, masculine generic forms are used which is why the University of Kassel for example particularly asks the students to use gender-sensitive language in academic papers (Geschäftsordnung für die Zentrale Universitätsverwaltung der Universität Kassel 13). This is a change that has also been inspired by feminist movements. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, feminism can be defined as “the belief and aim that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men” (570) but also as “the struggle to achieve this aim” (ibid.). This description already shows that there is an ongoing struggle of women to become equal members of society as they feel that they are treated unjustly. A feminist, correspondingly, is “a person who supports the belief that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men” (ibid.).
Throughout the time, there have been three main waves of feminism which all sought to end gender inequality. The first wave occurred during the late 19th and early 20th century and focussed on women’s suffrage as women aimed to earn political independence. Judith Lorber notes that around the 1970s, gender reform feminism paved the way for second wave feminism as women were allowed to enter workplaces that used to be exclusive to men and became aware of the everyday struggles they were confronted with solely because they were women (see 15). Therefore, they demanded to be treated equally which resulted in the second wave of feminism. The second wave of feminism, which developed during the 1960s and lasted until the 1970s, depending on one’s location, concentrated on marital matters as well as sexuality and reproduction. During this time, de Beauvoir published her work The Second Sex, which is why it is oftentimes considered a milestone for feminists in Europe. McRobbie argues that in the 1970s and 1980s feminism was “forcefully rejected” by women as well as men since it was not considered contemporary anymore to become part of the feminist movement (qtd. in Bogerd 3). She goes on stating that this
post-feminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can be taken into account, to suggest that equality is achieved, in order to install a whole repertoire of new meanings which emphasise that it is no longer needed, it is a spent force (qtd. in Bogerd 4).
Thus, McRobbie understands that feminism was no longer required in post-feminism since a certain degree of equality must have been achieved in order for it to become expendable. At the end of the 20th century and around 2012 third wave feminism and fourth wave feminism redefined and established new political, social and economic standards for women. An important key figure, particularly for second wave feminism, was Virginia Woolf who is going to be introduced in the following chapter.
3.Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf was born as Adeline Virginia Stephen at 22 Hyde Park Gate, London, on January 25, 1882. She was the third of four children of her parents Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth. In that same year, her father started working as an editor the Dictionary of National Biography and the Cornhill Magazine (Brewster 1). Thus, Woolf was born into quite a literary family. This might have paved the way for her future career as a writer which started with the pieces A Cockney’s Farming Experiences and The Experiences of a Paterfamilias which she wrote with her brother Thoby for the Hyde Park Gate News in 1892 (Sellers xii). After her father’s death in 1902, Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell moved to Bloomsbury and became the central figures of The Bloomsbury Group, which was a collaboration between artists and writers and is still very well-known today. Describing the spirit of Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group Alex Zwerdling says:
Homosexuality and lesbianism [were] not only practiced but openly discussed; adulterous liaisons becoming an accepted part of the family circle; menages a trois, a quatre, a cinq; and all this happening shortly after the death of Queen Victoria, among people raised by the old rules (qtd. in Gilbert xv).
Therefore, Woolf had a mindset that was way ahead of her time in terms of feminism as well as sexuality which is why her view on these topics deserves closer examination.
3.1 Virginia Woolf as a Feminist
Even though Woolf had written strongly feminist works like A Room of One’s Own or Three Guineas in 1929 and 1938, she was not considered a feminist thinker until the 1960s when Second Wave feminists started to use Woolf’s literature for their campaigns (Moran 165). In fact, Deborah Parsons, a senior lecturer and chair of postgraduate programmes at the University of Birmingham, claims that A Room of One’s Own can be considered the founding text of 20th century feminist literature (ibid. 82).
An example of the ongoing debates at that time can be provided by an extract of Otto Weininger’s work Sex and Character which was an argumentation based on bisexuality. Weininger was an Austrian philosopher who gained great popularity at the beginning of the 20th century and said:
Women have no existence and no essence; they are not, they are nothing. Mankind occurs as male or female, as something or nothing. Woman has no share in ontological reality, no relation to the thing-in-itself, which in the deepest interpretation is the absolute, is God. Man in his highest form, the genius, has such a relation, and for him the absolute is either the conception of the highest worth of existence, in which case he is a philosopher; or it is the wonderful fairyland of dreams, the kingdom of absolute beauty, and then he is an artist. Both views mean the same. Woman has no relation to the idea, she neither affirms nor denies it; she is neither moral nor anti-moral; mathematically speaking, she has no sign; she is purposeless, neither good nor bad, neither angel nor devil, never egotistical (and therefore has often been said to be altruistic); she is as non-moral as she is non-logical. But all existence is moral and logical existence. So woman has no existence. (286)
Hence, it becomes clear that women did not hold a very high position since men considered themselves superior, which was why the feminist movement arrived. Woolf became an important key figure of the feminist movement and the second wave in particular. As a feminist pioneer her works focussed on the relationship of women and fiction as well as the role of women in literature. This is illustrated by examining her diaries, novels, letters and criticism. Thus, her feminist ideas cannot only be found in her essays but they also reoccur in her fictional works. Having been a women writer herself, she knew about the difficulties of being a female author in the early 20th century and chose this issue as the main topic of her work A Room of One’s Own which was published in 1928, just a short time after Orlando. Here, she talks about the social and economic conditions required for writing, the “female sentence” which differs from the “male sentence” as the language of women could neither be straightforward, nor did it mirror the freedom of mind like men’s writing did. Therefore, the issue of the lack of women writers as well as the ideal of an androgynous perspective are picked out as central themes in which the author of a text would be free to write without identifying with one of the two sexes. In order to convey her theories, Woolf decided to present her ideas in the form of a narration.
On the basis of this work, this chapter is going to analyse Woolf’s own feminist approach in order to point out her own understanding of the concept of gender. When she was asked to give a speech for women at Cambridge about “Women and Florition” and started off saying:
The title women and fiction might mean, and you may have meant it to mean, women and what they are like, or it might mean women and the fiction that they write; or it might mean women and the fiction that is written about them, or it might mean that somehow all three are inextricably mixed together and you want me to consider them in that light. But when I began to consider the subject in this last way, which seemed the most interesting, I soon saw that it had one fatal drawback. I should never be able to come to a conclusion. I should never be able to fulfil what is, I understand, the first duty of a lecturer to hand you after an hour’s discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece for ever. (A Room of One’s Own 5)
Thus, Woolf initially points out that there was a major issue with women and fiction, namely the limitations women were bound to due to the societal situation at that time. Shoe goes on summarising:
All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point – a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved (5-6).
Hence, while thinking about the ways in which women could grow, she came to the conclusion that women needed to have money and a room of their own if she was to write fiction, which showed that there was still a major gap between men and women that needed to be solved. Hence, during the course of her lecture, she invites the audience to explore these issues with her by taking on a persona called Mary who attends college and takes the audience on her journey through college. Here, it must be noted that Mary, in fact, serves as a pars pro toto as Woolf intends to represent every woman in her essay. Thinking about her lecture and what she wants to talk about, Mary dives into her thoughts:
But however small it was [the thought], it had, nevertheless, the mysterious property of its kind – put back into the mind, it became at once very exciting, and important; and as it darted and sank, and flashed hither and thither, set up such a wash and tumult of ideas that it was impossible to sit still. It was thus that I found myself walking with extreme rapidity across a grass plot. Instantly a man’s figure rose to intercept me. Nor did I at first understand that the gesticulations of a curious-looking object, in a cut-away coat and evening shirt, were aimed at me. His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help, he was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path. Only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me. … What idea it had been that had sent me so audaciously trespassing I could not now remember. (A Room of One’s Own 7-8)
Thus, Mary’s thought fades away as the man scares her off, which symbolises the oppression of women by men who are looking to find a voice. Hence, it becomes evident that Woolf strongly criticises the position women hold in society as they are unable to develop within these male barriers that are restraining them. Mary experiences quite a few of these situations in which she feels intellectually restricted. She for example visits a women’s college named Fernham and feels utterly underwhelmed by the conversation the female students are having as it mainly evolves around gossip instead of more meaningful topics like politics or economics. In her work, Woolf raises the point that women have been systematically excluded from the educational system which is why they are not as financially viable as men as “[i]intellectual freedom depends on material things” (106). Instead, women usually function as housewives who stay at home and take care of their husband and their children which discouraged them from writing.
Woolf closes her work noting that androgyny, consequently, is a crucial part for becoming a successful writer. She says that “[a]ll who have brought about a state of sex-consciousness are to blame” (102) since “[p]oetry ought to have a mother as well as a father” (101). Instead, she views a gender-neutral mind as the ideal starting position for writing poetry:
If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties. (97)
Furthermore, Woolf adds that “[i]t is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly” (A Room of One’s Own 102). Woolf thus argues that women as well as men need to open up towards the other sex as their mind cannot achieve full productivity without a certain amount of maleness and femaleness. Elizabeth Wright (2006) furthers this thought by stating that for Woolf “androgyny is the capacity of a single person of either sex to embody the full range of human character traits, despite cultural attempts to render some exclusively feminine and some exclusively masculine” (16). Woolf would like for society to become more open-minded in general and fights for this with the Bloomsbury Group as “it is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex” (A Room of One’s Own 102). Therefore, a connection between Butler’s theory and Woolf’s point of view on gender becomes clear. Both agree that not identifying with either gender is superior to the dual gender system that was valid at that time since belonging to either gender inhabits certain restrictions.
Woolf herself lived according to the liberal mentality she tries to convey in A Room of One’s Own which becomes clear looking at her relationship with Vita Sackville-West which started around 1925 and lasted about ten years. Sackville-West did not only become Woolf’s muse as she was the inspiration for Orlando but they also had a strong intellectual and sexual connection as the following chapter will exemplify.
4. Orlando: A Biography
Now that Butler’s gender theory and Woolf’s feminist ideas have been introduced, the focus of this paper will be shifted to Orlando. In order to allow for a broader understanding of the novel which this paper is going to deal with, there will now be an introduction to the plot as well as to the history of its production.
4.1 Summary
Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography deals with the protagonist named Orlando and tells the story of their life. Even though the story starts in 1588 and ends in 1928, the protagonist only ages 36 years and changes their gender from male to female. At the beginning, Orlando is only 16 years old and wakes up to the sound of the trumpets which announce Queen Elizabeth’s arrival. Orlando rushes home to get ready and when the Queen sees them for the first time, she is rather impressed by their good looks. Only a couple of years after they met, the Queen asks Orlando to join her at her court at Whitehall and awards them with several titles. In addition to that, Orlando becomes her lover. However, the Queen one day spots Orlando kissing another girl and finally forces them out of her court.
After that, Orlando enjoys great popularity among women but finally decides to go back to the court which is now ruled by King James I. There, Orlando has serious relationships with three women named Clorinda, Favilla and Euphrosyne. Next, the Great Frost arrived and turned the Thames river into an ice rink. Here, Orlando sees a person ice skating on the river and although they are not sure whether it is a woman or a man they are adoring, Orlando is still certain that they feel attracted by them. This person turns out to be the Russian Princess Sasha and the two end up falling in love with each other. When they plan to run away together, however, Sasha never shows up which leaves Orlando heartbroken. Soon after that, Orlando finds out that the Thames river is no longer frozen which means that the Great Frost has come to an end. Having been left behind by Sasha, Orlando decides to isolate themselves in his overwhelmingly large house and dedicate their time to writing poetry. Nicholas “Nick” Greene, a well-known writer, comes to visit Orlando and afterwards writes a parody about them and their current situation which once again leaves Orlando feeling sad and alone. Consequently, Orlando burns all their poetic works except for one poem called The Oak Tree. Having refurnished their home, Orlando invites their neighbours to come over and receives a lot of positive feedback for their newly designed home. One day, they spot a tall person riding a horse in his courtyard. This person turns out to be the Archduchess Harriet Griselda of Romania whom Orlando has a short affair with. Due to the Archduchess’ strong advances towards him, Orlando soon decides to leave England and goes to Constantinople as an Ambassador instead. The ruling King Charles II is so impressed with Orlando’s work that he soon promotes them to become a duke. One night, some people observe how Orlando pulls up a woman through his window using a rope, yet the next morning no woman is to be found in his bedroom. Moreover, the servants are unable to wake Orlando up. Instead, they find a wedding certificate on Orlando’s desk proclaiming the marriage between Orlando and Rosina Pepita who turns out to be a Spanish dancer. Seven days later, Orlando wakes up as a woman. Yet, Orlando is not at all disturbed by these new circumstances and gets used to their new life rather quickly. Orlando meets an old gypsy named Rustum and eventually follows them to the mountains of Turkey where they seem to live peacefully with the gypsy community. The gypsies, however, do not trust Orlando because they do not share the same values and therefore ask Orlando to leave.
On their way back to England, Orlando starts a short romance with Captain Nicholas. Here, they also become aware of what it means to be a woman and contemplates about the different values of the two genders. Having arrived in England, Orlando once again meets the Archduchess Harriet and finds out that the Archduchess, is, in fact, a man, now called Archduke Harry who still asks to marry Orlando. However, Orlando rejects his proposal and spends her time with famous poets of the 18th century instead who soon begin to tire her as well. One day, Orlando sees some great dark clouds in the sky above which signifies the end of the 18th century.
The following Victorian age is depicted as rather dark and depressing which leads Orlando to believe that they need to find a husband as they considers this to be an important part of the 19th century. Soon after having declared to be nature’s bride, Orlando meets the nobleman Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine[2], Esquire and immediately falls in love with him. A few moments later, they realise they are meant for each other and decide to get married before Shel has to get back on his ship.
Orlando then finally manages to finish their poem The Oak Tree and travels to London where they again meet Nick Greene. Greene is impressed by Orlando’s poem and promises to publish it. A bit later, the year 1901 begins and King Edward VII becomes the ruler of the country. Orlando is struck ten times on the head which announces the current date, 10am on Thursday, 11 October 1928. Orlando has now reached the age of 36. When Orlando goes to a store and smells a candle, they suddenly think that Sasha is standing right in front of them and realise that everything in the world seems to be interconnected. On their drive home, they contemplate about all their different selves and try to find their true self, they find that it is all of them.
Orlando is scared by the present and goes to their safe place, the oak tree, in order to bury their book but finally decides against it. Orlando then hears an airplane above their head and sees Shel jumping out of it. The clock strikes midnight and Orlando realises that the present has arrived.
4.2 Background Information
Orlando was written during the period of modernism which arose in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. Modernist literature aimed to separate itself from previous works by experimenting and breaking with existing traditions. Bradbury and McFarlane explain that ongoing tension as
the art of a world from which many traditional certainties had departed, and a certain sort of Victorian confidence not only in the onward progress of mankind but in the very solidity and visibility of reality itself has evaporated” (qtd. in Parsons 11).
Thus, this chapter will show that the plot of Orlando covers the characteristics of this literary period since before the publishing of Orlando, topics like androgyny and homosexuality used to be taboo topics until Woolf picked them out as central themes for her works, like the analysis of A Room of One’s Own has shown. In order to allow for a broader understanding of why Orlando has become so widely popular, this chapter is going to introduce Woolf’s work as a narrative piece of art. For this purpose, there will firstly be background information provided, along with a summary of the complex matters Orlando experiences throughout their life. Then, there will be a structural analysis in order to provide a more literary point of view. After this, the most meaningful concepts which frequently reoccur throughout the novel will be presented.
In her essay Desiring Women: The Partnership of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West Karyn Sproles, the director of the Center for Teaching & Learning at the US Naval Academy, therefore, calls Orlando “A Biography of Desire” (82). However, Woolf’s feelings for Sackville-West also become apparent looking at her diary. In her entry of 20 May 1926 Woolf writes:
And Vita comes to lunch tomorrow, which will be a great amusement & pleasure. I am amused at my relations with her: left so ardent in January - & now what? Also I like her presence & her beauty. Am I in love with her? But what is love? Her being ‘in love’ (it must be comma’s thus) with me, excites & flatters; & interests. (The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume III[3] 86-87)
Here, it becomes apparent that she had a rather playful relationship with Vita at the start as she feels delighted by Vita’s presence but, simultaneously, she is not quite certain whether she is in love with her. Nevertheless, this extract emphasises the strong emotional bound the two of them shared since their feelings clearly develop towards a romantic direction. Therefore, Woolf finds rather poetic words to describe her lover as she says:
Vita very free & easy, always giving me great pleasure to watch, & recalling some image of a ship breasting at sea, nobly, magnificently, with all sails spread & the gold sunlight on them. (Diary III 146)
The image of a ship at sea is also very prominent in Orlando since Shel is a noble sea captain and at the end of the novel dramatically returns to Orlando who has already been waiting for their husband. Thus, this image of Sackville-West could have been another inspiration for the storyline of Orlando. In another diary entry Woolf writes:
So Vita came: & I register the shock of meeting after absence; how shy one is; how disillusioned by the actual body; how sensitive to new shades of tone – something ‘womanly’ I detected, more mature; & she was shabbier, come straight off in her travelling clothes; & not so beautiful, as sometimes perhaps; … (Diary III 88)
Hence, Sackville-West seemed to have taken on different looks throughout the time, one rather feminine and the other one quite masculine. Since this entry had been written before Woolf announced her idea to write Orlando, it is quite likely that this is an example for Sackville-West’s androgynous looks which inspired Woolf to come up with her story about a person who undergoes a gender transformation. Orlando, however, includes several more details alluding to Sackville-West’s life which are now going to be elaborated on.
Sackville-West was born an only child into a noble family and grew up in Knole House, a large country house located in Kent, England which her family owned. Feeling a very strong connection with her family as well as the property, Sackville-West wrote a book about the history of her family and the building named Knole and the Sackvilles, published in 1922. Sproles points out that “[Orlando] draws from, and also parodies, Knole and the Sackvilles” (71) as Woolf was extremely intrigued by Sackville West’s aristocratic background and ended up taking Knole and the Sackvilles as an example for her own work Orlando. Woolf for example adapted the issue that when Sackville-West’s father died in 1928, she was not able to inherit Knole House since she was a woman. Therefore, the property was passed on to her cousin Eddy, which is thematised in Orlando. In a letter to Woolf Sackville-West wrote:
'Do you know, I never read Orlando without tears pricking in my eyes? . . . . Whether it is the mere beauty of the book, or whether it is because it is you, or because it is Knole, or because it is all three, I don't know. (Glendinning 317)
As Woolf was aware of the connection Sackville-West shared with that property, she saw an opportunity in Orlando to restore that feeling of safety that she was now lacking (Sproles 72). Thus, Woolf had more than just one motivation to write Orlando, which would turn out to be her most famous work since she also aimed to address the political restrictions towards women, which the inheritance of property like in Sackville-West’s case was just one example for (ibid. 73). Having completed To the Lighthouse, Woolf felt
the need of an escapade after these serious experimental books whose form is always so closely considered. I want to kick up my heels and be off. I want to embody all those innumerable little ideas and tiny stories which flash into my mind at all seasons. I think this will be great fun to write; and it will rest my head before starting the very serious, mystical, poetical work which I want to come next. (Diary III 121)
Thus, she eventually decided to take on Orlando as a new project. About the writing process of Orlando, Woolf said:
I was making up phrases; sit, contriving scenes; am in short in the thick of the greatest rapture known to me…. I am writing Orlando in a mock style very clear and plain, so that people will understand every word. But the balance between truth and fantasy must be careful. It is based on Vita, Violet Trefusis, Lord Lascelles, Knole, etc. (Diary III 121)
Thus, Woolf did initially intend for Orlando to become a pure mock biography inspired by her dear friend and lover’s life. Nigel Nicholson, Vita’s son, later described Orlando as “the longest and most charming love-letter in literature” (87). Vita Sackville-West confirmed this stating that Orlando was
inspired by her own strange conception of myself, my family, and Knole, my family home. Such things as old families and great houses held a sort of Proustian fascination for [Woolf] …. They satisfied her acute sense of the continuity of history, English history in particular. (Diary III 121)
Thus, Sackville-West and her aristocratic background were the original source of inspiration for Woolf’s work since she had always been fascinated with English history. Being based on Sackville-West’s life, Orlando naturally contains quite a few details like people or events that were important throughout her life. Still only having a vague idea about how her novel should turn out eventually, Woolf states that:
It might be a way of writing the memoirs of one’s own times during peoples lifetimes. It might be a most amusing book. The question is how to do it. Vita should be Orlando, a young nobleman. There should be Lytton. & it should be truthful; but fantastic. (Diary III 157)
Therefore, she aimed to include real as well as fantastic details of Vita’s life in the novel. However, at this point she had already decided that Vita should be displayed as a male nobleman. On 5 Oct 1927, Woolf is free to fully dedicate herself to writing Orlando and comes up with the pioneering idea to include a change of gender in her work:
If my pen allowed, I should now try to make out a work table, having done my last article for the tribune, & now being free again. And instantly the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year 1500 & continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change about from one sex to another. (Diary III 161)
Only a few weeks later Woolf is completely taken in by the energy of Orlando:
[I] am launched somewhat furtively but with all the more passion upon Orlando: A Biography. It is to be a small book, & written by Christmas. I thought I could combine it with Fiction, but once the mind gets hot it cant stop” (161)
Therefore, Woolf had to abolish the idea that Orlando should partly become a fictional work and furthermore adds that “[t]his one [Orlando] came in a rush” (161) which highlights the fun she had while producing what would end up becoming one of her bestselling books. Even though Woolf at first intended for Orlando to become a source of entertainment mainly for herself and Sackville-West, she soon found herself getting invested in the writing process: “I have had of course to give up the fancy of finishing by February & printing this spring. It is drawing out longer than I meant” (Diary III 167). Having devoted most of her time to Orlando, Woolf got rather excited and noted: “It has to be half laughing, half serious: with great splashes of exaggeration” (Diary III 168). Here, a small change of mind already becomes visible since a few months into the writing process, Woolf does not insist on Orlando being a solely ironic work anymore but also added a serious aspect to it. Almost having finished her novel, Woolf began to feel drained and uttered some doubts about the reception of her work:
For some reason, I am hacking rather listlessly at the last chapter of Orlando, which was to have been the best. Always always the last chapter slips out of my hands. One gets bored. One whips oneself up. I still hope for a fresh wind, & dont very much bother, except that I miss the fun, which was so tremendously lively all October, November & December. I have my doubts if it is not empty ; & too fantastic to write at such length. (Diary III 175)
Eventually, however, Woolf describes Orlando itself as androgynous since she is unsure about what genre her work can be allocated to: “Yes its done – Orlando – begun on 8 October, as a joke; & now rather too long for my liking. It may fall between stools, be too long for a joke, & too frivolous for a serious book” (Diary III 177). This certainly has an ironic aspect to it since androgyny is also the main theme of the novel. Furthermore, this quote also emphasises that in the end, Woolf had completely changed her mind about Orlando being only a source of entertainment. Instead, she places it somewhere in between being a jest and a significant work. More than half a year after the publishing of Orlando, Woolf seems to regret not putting in more effort into writing it:
The sun is out again; I have half forgotten Orlando already, since L. has read it & it has half passed out of my possession. I think it lacks the sort of hammering I should have given it if I had taken longer: is too freakish & unequal. Very brilliant now & then. As for the effect of the whole, that I cant judge. Not, I think ‘important’ among my works. (Diary III 184)
At first, Woolf’s gloom is confirmed by the numbers of sold books. On September 22 1928, Woolf wrote the following in her diary:
But the news of Orlando is black. We may sell a third that we sold of The Lighthouse before publication – Not a shop will buy save in 6es & 12es. They say this is inevitable. No one wants biography. But it is a novel, says Miss Ritchie. But it is called a biography on the title page, they say. It will have to go on the Biography shelf. I doubt therefore that we shall do more than cover expenses – a high price to pay for the fun of calling it a biography. And I was so sure it was going to be the one popular book! (Diary III 198)
Therefore, she was rather disappointed that Orlando was not considered a novel but a biography instead, as this is what it is called on the front page. Consequently, Woolf was worried that only few people would end up buying her book even though she considered it one of her greatest works. Only one month later, on 27 October, however, Woolf’s mood has changed completely as she writes: “The reception, as they say, surpassed expectations. Sales beyond our record for the first week” (Diary III 200). At the end, the success of Orlando probably did come as a surprise to Woolf as in her diary entry on 5 November 1929, she calls her work “mere childs play” (Diary III 264), which underlines that at the beginning she started writing the book solely for fun and without any intention of it becoming as popular as it did. Hence, the writing process included numerous ups and downs but eventually resulted in a tremendous success not only for Woolf but also for the feminist movement. Selden et al. (2005) summarise these findings by stating that the greatest success Woolf has achieved as a feminist is her understanding that “gender identity is socially constructed and can be challenged and transformed” (118). Therefore, Woolf created a new kind of genre with her fantastic-historical mock biography that is based on her same-sex lover Vita Sackville-West’s life which mirrors the spirit of the modern literary period. Moreover, it has been shown that the novel alludes to numerous events in Sackville-West’s life which constitutes the special style of the novel and manifests it as a work of narrative art.
4.3 The Role of the Biographer
Sproles points out that “Orlando is a book in which multiple discourses merge to provide very different readings, none of which can easily be pinned down” (76) which is why the unusual style of narration needs to be analysed before gender in Orlando can be further analysed. Orlando is written in the point of view of a third-person omniscient narrator. This role is taken over by the biographer who plays a crucial role in Woolf’s work as they tell the story from Orlando’s point of view. Since the biographer is not allocated a gender, the gender-neutral pronoun “they” will be used to refer to them. In The Art of Biography Woolf comments on the role of a biographer as follows:
By telling us the true facts, by sifting the little from the big, and shaping the whole so that we perceive the outline, the biographer does more to stimulate the imagination than any poet or novelist save the very greatest. For few poets and novelists are capable of that high degree of tension which gives us reality. But almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders. Of this, too, there is certain proof. For how often, when a biography is read and tossed aside, some scene remains bright, some figure lives on in the depths of the mind, and causes us, when we read a poem or a novel, to feel a start of recognition, as if we remembered something that we had known before. (129-130)
Therefore, Woolf argues that biographies and fictional works should be intertwined to facilitate the reader’s imagination using “’authentic information’ from which…good biography is made” (127). An example of this can be found when the biographer comments on London society saying that
To give a truthful account of London society at that or indeed at any other time, it is beyond the powers of the biographer or the historian. Only those who have little need of the truth, and no respect for it – the poets and the novelists – can be trusted to do it, for this is one of the cases where the truth does not exist. (113)
In addition to this, Woolf highlights that “[t]he biographer is bound by facts” (128) which “are not like the facts of science” (ibid.) but rather
subject to changes of opinion; opinions change as the times change.…what was thought a sin is now known, by the light of facts won for us by the psychologists, to be perhaps a misfortune; perhaps a curiosity; perhaps neither one nor the other, but a trifling foible of no great importance one way or the other. The accent on sex has changed within living memory. (ibid.)
Consequently, this extract points out the reason why Woolf decided to choose a biographer as the narrator for Orlando since this method allows for a more liberal presentation of Orlando’s life. It is considered the biographer’s responsibility to investigate what is reality and falsity which is why “he must be prepared to admit contradictory versions of the same face” (ibid.). Woolf established the narrator in Orlando contradicting this theory which becomes apparent when looking at the way the biographer describes Orlando when the narrator says: “Directly we glance at eyes and forehead, we have to admit a thousand disagreeables which it is the aim of every good biographer to ignore” (12). However, the previous analysis has shown that Woolf, in fact, considers “a sense of truth” (The Art of Biography 128) which includes questioning the verity of reality a necessary feature of good biographers. This contradiction also becomes obvious looking at the following extract:
The biographer is now faced with a difficulty which it is better perhaps to confess than to gloss over. Up to this point in telling the story of Orlando’s life, documents, both private and historical, have made it possible to fulfil the first duty of a biographer, which is to plod, without looking to right or left, in the inedible footprints of truth; we fall plump into the grave and write finis on the tombstone above our heads. But now we come to an episode which lies right across our path, so that there is no ignoring it. Yet it is dark, mysterious, and undocumented; so that there is no explaining it. Volumes might be written in interpretation of it; whole religious systems founded upon the signification of it. Our simple duty is to state the facts as far as they are known, and so let the reader make of them what he may. (Orlando 41)
Here, the narrator states that it is necessary to strictly stick to the facts that have been provided without taking other possible truths into consideration. Again, this statement is inconsistent with Woolf’s notion that good biographies unite several points of view to form the truth.
But the revolution which broke out during his [Orlando’s] period of office, and the fire which followed, have so damaged or destroyed all those papers from which any trustworthy record could be drawn, that what we can give is lamentably incomplete…. Just when we thought to elucidate a secret that has puzzled historians for a hundred years, there was a hole in the manuscript big enough to put your fingers through. We have done our best to piece out a meagre summary from the charred fragments that remain; but often it has been necessary to speculate, to surmise, and even use to use the imagination. (72)
In this extract the narrator states that due to lacks of information on Orlando’s life the reader must use their imagination to fill the gaps. Therefore, the biographer is aware that their possibilities to tell a person’s whole life story are limited which shows that the narrator’s objectivity is questionable. The lack of information reappears at a later point in the novel when Orlando has a long conversation with Shel:
For it has come about, by the wise economy of nature, that our modern spirit can almost dispense with language; the commonest expressions do, since no expressions do; hence the most ordinary conversation is often the most poetic, and the most poetic is precisely that which cannot be written down. For which reasons we leave a great blank here, which must be taken to indicate that the space is filled to repletion. (147)
The biographer hence argues that the exact conversation between Orlando and Shel is not as important as the fact that their love is apparent in any talk they are having. Consequently, the narrator leaves the content of the conversation up to the reader’s imagination, which is visually emphasised by a following great blank space in the novel. This implicit ellipsis hence underlines the incapability of the narrator to depict all details of Orlando’s life and at the same times it is used to point out the connection between Orlando and Shel.
This lack of objectivity is ironically portrayed when the narrator explicitly mentions that a biography always needs to be perfectly detailed:
Suddenly she started – and here we could only wish that, as on a former occasion, Purity, Chastity, and Modesty would push the door ajar and provide, at least, a breathing space in which we could think how to wrap what now has to be told delicately, as a biographer should. (169)
At the same time, however, the narrator seems to be content leaving out most of Orlando’s selves since there are
far more [selves] than we have been able to find room for, since a biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may well have as many thousand. (179)
Therefore, the biographer’s views contradict each other as on the one hand they try to tell the story as objectively as they can even though this is impossible and on the other hand simply leaves out details, like Orlando getting married to Rosina Pepita or being pregnant, not because they are not aware of them but because they take up too much space. Consequently, the biographer in Orlando functions as a narrator but also questions the objectivity of the biography itself, as Lucie Kramelová points out. Kathryn N. Benzel also highlights that there is a meaningful aesthetic to Orlando as it inherits
the dual nature of Woolf’s innovation: that is, as Woolf purposefully deconstructs biography and narrative in Orlando, she not only creates a new narrative form but also redefines the relationship of reader and writer. (169)
Moreover, Benzel draws attention to Woolf’s unpublished and unfinished critical work sometimes either titled Reading at Random or Turning the Page in which Woolf addresses the reader-writer relationship she wants to achieve. In the chapter Anon Woolf states that in an ideal communication “[e]verybody shared in the emotion of Anons [sic] song, and supplied the story” (qtd. in Benzel 169-70). In her work How Should One Read a Book? Woolf once more discusses the reader-writer relationship and points out that readers need to “refresh and exercise [their] own creative powers” to be able “to make use of all that the novelist – the great artist – gives [them]” (qtd. in Benzel 170). Applying this theory to Woolf’s Orlando, it becomes clear that this role is partly taken over by “a self-conscious ‘biographer’” who frequently comments on Orlando’s actions as this chapter has shown (Benzel 170). However, also the reader needs to take part in this process by taking on the role of a “second author” (170) so that the reader and writer are able to form a symbiosis that might support building Orlando’s character by constantly redefining the reality of the story as well as the fictional parts.
Therefore, by using the fictional biographer as the narrator in Orlando, Woolf implicitly criticises the notion that biographies are objectively written pieces of literature since in this work Orlando’s subjective experiences are described in a very detailed manner.
4.4 The Concept of Time
Time, next to the biographer, is another concept which Woolf presents in a rather playful manner in Orlando. Considering that Orlando lives for almost 400 years and at the present moment is only 36 years old, it becomes apparent that the concept of time in this work deserves special attention.
The reason for time passing in a strange way is that it does not pass universally but exactly how Orlando perceives it as the following extract underlines:
But Time, unfortunately, though it makes animals and vegetables bloom and fade with amazing punctuality, has no such simple effect upon the mind of man. The mind of man, moreover, works with equal strangeness upon the body of time. An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length; on the other hand, an hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second. This extraordinary discrepancy between time on the clock and time in the mind is less known than it should be and deserves fuller investigation. But the biographer, whose interests are, as we have said, highly restricted, must confine himself to one simple statement: when a man has reached the age of thirty, as Orlando now had, time when he is thinking becomes inordinately long; time when he is doing becomes inordinately short. (59)
Here, the biographer explicitly explains that time in this work is sometimes stretched and sometimes shortened since there is a difference between time on the clock and time in one’s mind. The fact that time in Orlando goes by either extremely slowly can be shown looking at some examples from the novel. After lying down in the grass with Shel, for example, “[e]ight or nine days had been spent thus” (151), whereas “in the space of three seconds and a half, everything had changed – she [Orlando] had broken her ankle, fallen in love, married Shelmerdine” (153). Michael Rosenthal comments on this concept saying that
external, linear chronologies have little to do with the inner experience of time which can be complicated, paradoxical, and totally at variance with how things appear on the surface. (139)
Hence, the apparent length of Orlando’s life might just underline how peculiar and eventful their life has been or how they experience themselves. Taking this subjective concept of time into consideration, it is no longer surprising that the protagonist lives through approximately 350 years of the past and therefore does not only provide insight into their life but also give an overview of the British history with regards to the Elizabethan, Restoration and Victorian ages. Thus, it immediately becomes clear to the reader that the concept of time in this novel also conveys a symbolic meaning which is highlighted by the following paragraph about Orlando’s own sense of time:
It would be no exaggeration to say that he [Orlando] would go out after breakfast a man of thirty and come home to dinner a man of fifty-five at least. Some weeks added a century to his age, others no more than three seconds at most. Altogether, the task of estimating the length of human life (of the animals’ we presume not to speak) is beyond our capacity, for directly we say that it is ages long, we are reminded that it is briefer than the fall of a rose leaf to the ground. (59)
Generally, time seems to pass more quickly when Orlando does something they are passionate about, like writing poetry:
Now, therefore, she could write, and write she did. She wrote. She wrote. She wrote.
It was now November. After November comes December. Then January, February, March and April. After April comes May. June, July, August follow. Next is September. Then October, and so, behold, here we are back at November again, with a whole year accomplished. (154-155)
The importance of time in Orlando also becomes obvious when looking at the following extract:
… and the clock ticked louder than and louder until there was a terrific explosion right in her ear. Orlando leapt as if she had been violently struck on the head. Ten times she was struck. In fact, it was ten o’clock in the morning. It was the eleventh of October. It was 1928. It was the present moment. (173)
This excerpt underlines the strong connection between Orlando and their sense of time as the passing of time physically influences Orlando’s well-being. In fact, time actually seems to be working against Orlando as the mentioning of a clock striking usually has a negative impact on Orlando’s mental and physical health, as Orlando, earlier on, is also interrupted by the striking of a clock:
All his senses were bent upon gazing along the cobbled pathway - gleaming in the light of the lantern - for Sasha's coming. Suddenly, with an awful and ominous voice, a voice full of horror and alarm which raised every hair of anguish in Orlando's soul, St Paul's struck the first stroke of midnight. Four times more it struck remorselessly. With the superstition of a lover, Orlando had made out that it was on the sixth stroke that she would come. But the sixth stroke echoed away, and the seventh came and the eighth, and to his apprehensive mind they seemed notes first heralding and then proclaiming death and disaster. When the twelfth struck he knew that his doom was sealed. It was useless for the rational part of him to reason; she might be late; she might be prevented; she might have missed her way. The passionate and feeling heart of Orlando knew the truth. Other clocks struck, jangling one after another. The whole world seemed to ring with the news of her deceit and his derision. (37-38)
This is the first time the striking of a clock is mentioned in the novel and it already becomes evident that this motif goes hand in hand with an unsettling feeling. In this example, time is personified as it is described as having “a voice full of horror and alarm” (37) “heralding and then proclaiming death and disaster” (ibid.). Therefore, it appears to be more vivid and consequently helps the reader to understand the concept of the obtrusive sound of the ringing clock. Moreover, the phrase “superstition of a lover” already reveals that no lover will come to see Orlando. The climax, starting with St. Paul’s clock striking, followed by other clocks and finally the whole world ringing, emphasises the intensity with which Orlando perceives the noise coming from the striking clock.
Consequently, for the rest of the paper it needs to be noted that the concept of time in Orlando is extremely subjective which is why the biographer’s words should always stay in the back of one’s mind when moving on to the next chapters about Orlando: “The true length of a person’s life, whatever the Dictionary of National Biography may say, is always a matter of dispute” (177).
- Quote paper
- Anonymous,, 2021, The exploration of gender in Virginia Woolf's "Orlando", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1266577
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