BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA February 21, 2019 Orlando

“I'm sick to death of this particular self.

I want another.”

Contents:

Introduction 1

A Not-So-Brief 2-4 Author Biography

Themes, Symbols 5-6 and Motifs in Orlando

Notes 7

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A Not-So-Brief Author Biography

Who Was Virginia Woolf? Stephen (née Jackson), had been From the time of her birth until Born into a privileged English born in India and later served as a 1895, Woolf spent her summers household in 1882, author Virginia model for several Pre-Raphaelite in St. Ives, a beach town at the Woolf was raised by free-thinking painters. She was also a nurse very southwestern tip of England. parents. She began writing as a and wrote a book on the The Stephens’ summer home, young girl and published her first profession. Both of her parents Talland House, which is still novel, , in 1915. had been married and widowed standing today, looks out at the She wrote modernist classics before marrying each dramatic Porthminster Bay and including Mrs. Dalloway, To the other. Woolf had three full has a view of the Godrevy Lighthouse and Orlando, as well as siblings — Thoby, Vanessa and Lighthouse, which inspired her pioneering feminist works, A Room Adrian — and four half- writing. In her later memoirs, of One's Own and . In siblings — Laura Makepeace Woolf recalled St. Ives with a her personal life, she suffered Stephen and George, Gerald and great fondness. In fact, she bouts of deep depression. She Stella Duckworth. The eight incorporated scenes from those committed suicide in 1941, at the children lived under one roof at early summers into her age of 59. 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington. modernist novel, (1927). Early Life Two of Woolf’s brothers had been educated at Cambridge, but As a young girl, Virginia was Born on January 25, 1882, Adeline all the girls were taught at home curious, light-hearted and playful. Virginia Stephen was raised in a and utilized the splendid confines She started a family newspaper, remarkable household. Her father, of the family’s lush Victorian the Hyde Park Gate News, to Sir , was a historian library. Moreover, Woolf’s document her family’s humorous and author, as well as one of the parents were extremely well anecdotes. However, early most prominent figures in the connected, both socially and traumas darkened her childhood, golden age of mountaineering. artistically. including being sexually abused by Woolf’s mother, Julia Prinsep her half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth, which she

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wrote about in her essays A intellectuals and artists including Virginia and Leonard published Sketch of the Past and 22 Hyde the art critic Clive Bell, who some of their writing, as well as Park Gate. In 1895, at the age of married Virginia's sister Vanessa, the work of Sigmund Freud, 13, she also had to cope with the novelist E.M. Forster, the Katharine Mansfield and T.S. the sudden death of her painter Duncan Grant, the Eliot. mother from rheumatic fever, biographer Lytton Strachey, which led to her first mental economist John Maynard A year after the end of World breakdown, and the loss of her Keynes and essayist Leonard War I, the Woolfs purchased half-sister Stella, who had Woolf, among others. The Monk's House, a cottage in the become the head of the group became famous in 1910 village of Rodmell in 1919, and household, two years later. for the Dreadnought Hoax, a that same year Virginia practical joke in which members published Night and Day, a novel While dealing with her personal of the group dressed up as a set in Edwardian England. Her losses, Woolf continued her delegation of Ethiopian royals, third novel Jacob's Room was studies in German, Greek and including Virginia disguised as a published by Hogarth in 1922. Latin at the Ladies’ Department bearded man, and successfully Based on her brother Thoby, it of King’s College London. Her persuaded the English Royal was considered a significant four years of study introduced Navy to show them their departure from her earlier her to a handful of radical warship, the HMS Dreadnought. novels with its modernist feminists at the helm of After the outrageous act, elements. That year, she met educational reforms. In 1904, and Virginia author, poet her father died from stomach became closer, and eventually and landscape gardener Vita cancer, which contributed to they were married on August Sackville-West, the wife of another emotional setback that 10, 1912. The two shared a English diplomat Harold led to Woolf being passionate love for one another Nicolson. Virginia and Vita began institutionalized for a brief for the rest of their lives. a friendship that developed into period. Virginia Woolf’s dance a romantic affair. Although their between literary expression and Literary Work affair eventually ended, personal desolation would they remained friends until Several years before marrying continue for the rest of her life. Virginia Woolf's death. Leonard, Virginia had begun In 1905, she began writing working on her first novel. The professionally as a contributor In 1925, Woolf received rave original title was Melymbrosia. for The Times Literary Supplement. reviews for Mrs. Dalloway, her After nine years and A year later, Woolf's 26-year-old fourth novel. The mesmerizing innumerable drafts, it was brother Thoby died from story interweaved interior released in 1915 as The Voyage typhoid fever after a family trip monologues and raised issues of Out. Woolf used the book to to Greece. feminism, mental illness and experiment with several literary homosexuality in post-World After their father's death, tools, including compelling and War I England. Mrs. Dalloway was Woolf's sister Vanessa and unusual narrative perspectives, adapted into a 1997 film, starring brother Adrian sold the family dream-states and free Vanessa Redgrave, and home in Hyde Park Gate, and association prose. Two years inspired The Hours, a 1998 novel purchased a house in the later, the Woolfs bought a used by Michael Cunningham and a Bloomsbury area of London. printing press and established 2002 film adaptation. Her 1928 During this period, Virginia , their own novel, To the Lighthouse, was met several members of the publishing house operated out another critical success and , a circle of of their home, Hogarth House. considered revolutionary for its

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stream of consciousness intellectual, an innovative and 1940, the couple’s London home storytelling. influential writer and pioneering was destroyed during the Blitz, feminist. Her ability to balance the Germans bombing of the city. Woolf found a literary muse in dream-like scenes with deeply Sackville-West, the inspiration for tense plot lines earned her Unable to cope with her despair, Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando, which incredible respect from peers and Woolf pulled on her overcoat, follows an English nobleman who the public alike. Despite her filled its pockets with stones and mysteriously becomes a woman at outward success, she continued walked into the River Ouse on the age of 30 and lives on for over to regularly suffer from March 28, 1941. As she waded three centuries of English history. debilitating bouts of depression into the water, the stream took The novel was a breakthrough for and dramatic mood swings. her with it. The authorities found Woolf who received critical praise her body three weeks later. for the groundbreaking work, as Suicide and Legacy Leonard Woolf had her cremated well as a newfound level of and her remains were scattered at popularity. Woolf's husband, Leonard, always their home, Monk's House. by her side, was quite aware of In 1929, Woolf published A Room of any signs that pointed to his wife’s Although her popularity One's Own, a feminist essay based descent into depression. He saw, decreased after World War II, on lectures she had given at as she was working on what Woolf's work resonated again women's colleges, in which she would be her final with a new generation of readers examines women's role in manuscript, Between the during the feminist movement of literature. In the work, she sets Acts (published posthumously in the 1970s. Woolf remains one of forth the idea that “A woman must 1941),that she was sinking into the most influential authors of the have money and a room of her deepening despair. At the time, 21st century. own if she is to write fiction.” World War II was raging on and Woolf pushed narrative boundaries the couple decided if England was [https://www.biography.com/ in her next work, The invaded by Germany, they would people/virginia-woolf-9536773] Waves (1931), which she described commit suicide together, fearing as "a play-poem" written in the that Leonard, who was Jewish, voices of six different characters. would be in particular danger. In Woolf published , the final novel published in her lifetime in 1937, about a family's history over the course of a generation. The following year she published Three Guineas, an essay which continued the feminist themes of A Room of One's Own and addressed fascism and war.

Throughout her career, Woolf spoke regularly at colleges and universities, penned dramatic letters, wrote moving essays and self-published a long list of short stories. By her mid-forties, she had established herself as an

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Themes, Symbols and Motifs in Orlando

THEMES Gender differences Conforming to society Fact and Imagination The determination of difference As Orlando is introduced to each between the genders is a main new age and each new situation, One of the most important the- theme in Orlando. Are men and he changes himself to fit the rules mes in Orlando is the connection women really different? If so, of those around him. In the six- between fact and imagination. In why? Orlando's sex change is a teenth century, he wears fine Woolf's review of Harold Nichol- very important scene for deter- clothes and serves as a courtier son's Some People, she opened mining the answers to these to his Queen; in the seventeenth with this analogy: "if we think of questions. As Orlando wakes up century, he learns the Turkish truth as something of granite-like a woman, she looks at her body language and adapts himself to solidity and of personality as so- in a full-length mirror and com- exotic customs; in the eighteenth mething of rainbow-like intangibi- posedly walks to her bath. She is century, he figures out how to fit lity and reflect that the aim of not at all disconcerted by her in with London society; and in biography is to weld these two change in gender because she the nineteenth century, he dons into one seamless whole, we shall feels no different than she did petticoats and finds a husband. admit that the problem is a stiff before. At first, she acts no diffe- Orlando knows he must change one and that we need not wonder rently, either. When she lives in with each new adventure in or- if biographers, for the most part the gypsy camp in the hills of der to survive and become accep- failed to solve it." The metaphor Turkey, away from society and ted in the new age. of granite and rainbow emerges civilization, Orlando's sexuality again in her own novel when she But such conformity becomes seems to play no role in her life discusses Nature "who has played oppressive to Orlando. She at all. But when she travels on so many queer tricks upon us, grows tired of changing herself to board the English ship, in making us so unequally of clay and fit those around her. Ultimately, women's clothes, she immedia- diamonds, of rainbow and granite, when she reaches maturity in the tely begins to feel the difference. and stuffed them into a case." twentieth century, she resists The skirts that she is wearing, conforming, choosing instead to Woolf suggests that there is no and the way that people react to exist in her own internal world. realm of imagination separated her make her feel and act diffe- She realizes that though she has from a realm of fact; "rainbow and rent. What Woolf is suggesting matured, as people do, she has granite" are stuffed into one case. here is that gender roles are not always been the same person all Everything (internal and external, biological, but societal. Gender along. This theme of 'conforming fact and imagination) are linked is a concept imposed on people to society' plays an important together by our memory, and we who live in society. When Or- role in the novel. As Orlando will grow to "understand" when lando goes out into the night, a grows to be an independent we realize that neither memory woman dressed as a man, she mind, she rejects the idea of con- nor history can be easily ordered finds herself taking on traditional formity, choosing to remain and divided. Fact is a subjective male mannerisms. The point is however she chooses to be. quality, and the 'truth' emerges that when society allows the when we realize the interconnec- freedom of gender neutrality, tedness and relativity of every- people will be more free as indi- thing and everyone around us. It is viduals to act according to their such a unity of experience, not a nature and personality. triumph of "fact" that emerges victorious over time.

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SYMBOLS MOTIFS roles) society would have them wear. Once she has experienced Clouds over London Poetry what it is like to be a woman, The clouds over London which In every situation and adventure, Orlando does not want to give move in at the end of chapter four Orlando carries with him the this up, yet she longs for the mark the end of the eighteenth and manuscript of his poem "the Oak freedom she had as a man. Here, beginning of the nineteenth Tree." When he begins the poem, Woolf suggests that perhaps century. They symbolize the he means it as a place to 'anchor society is too rigid with regard to suffocation and oppressiveness his heart.' And indeed, the poem the roles it forces men and Orlando feels in the Victorian age. does become his anchor; the one women to play. Because they are Because the sunlight can never thing which connects all his selves so alike underneath their clothes, come in through the clouds, the together. Poetry is not only an the genders should be allowed characters live with a literal chill in artistic release for Orlando; it more freedom in their actions. their bones and a figurative chill in functions in the work as a record [https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/ their hearts. The clouds indicate of his maturation. As he grows, orlando/] unhappiness at the oppressive his writing style changes, from the nature of Victorian rules and social simplistic metaphors of his teens, conventions, especially for women to the ornate language of his like Orlando. twenties, and finally to the simple lines of her thirties. Orlando Orlando's manor house guards the poem, as she guards Orlando's large home is mentioned her heart, utterly afraid of frequently throughout the novel. It criticism and rejection. Ultimately, appears as a static and safe element the poem ties the entire narrative in a chaotic and changing world. together; it is a beginning (when a The house symbolically has 365 young boy sits under an oak tree) bedrooms and fifty-two stairways and an ending (when a middle- (the number of days in a year, and aged poem climbs to the tree to the number of weeks in a year, bury it). The poem is the record respectively). It is significant that of Orlando's internal life. the house is marked by static, Cross-dressing traditional measures of time, because the house provides Cross-dressing in Orlando occurs regularity for Orlando, something fairly frequently. Archduke Harry she can always return to when she dresses as a woman but reveals tires of her adventures in London himself to be a man in chapter or Turkey. Thus, it reminds the four. Similarly, even after reader that while the narrative Orlando's actual sex change, he itself may skip over decades or continues to switch between centuries, Orlando continues to clothes of both genders. This live within a framework. Time, as a motif functions in the novel to concept constructed by her emphasize the similarities ancestors, encompasses Orlando between men and women, despite and provides her a home. the different clothes (and different

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