S/he is a Wo/man: The Concept of Androgyny in Virginia Woolf ’ s Orlando

1. S/he is a Wo/man: The Concept of Androgyny in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando Prof. Wen-chuan Chu Student: Dennis Hsiu-yu Kuo June 28, 2007

2. Thesis Statement • Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is ambivalent. The title character Orlando is even more ambivalent. He—or should be called she—is probably hundreds years old by reality or thirty-six years old, which he/she counts for him/herself.

3. Orlando’s age is not the main concern in Orlando; instead, what is crux here is his/her oscillation from one sex to the other. His/her switch of sex is a life journey, leading him/her to profoundly contemplate on the issue of real self. Orlando’s life could mainly be divided into three stages—the womanly-man stage, the manly-woman stage, and the being stage.

4. Outline I. The sexually ambivalent Orlando’s inner development can be divided into three stages. A. The first stage is womanly-man. B. The second stage is manly-woman. C. The third stage is being.

5. II. The womanly-man stage begins Orlando’s life. A. Orlando begins with the emphasis on his sex, indicating the key issue is pertain to sexuality. B. Orlando is physically a man without doubt but his masculinity is mingled with femininity.

6. C. The constant image of Orlando’s leg and his occasional sentimentality highlight his femininity.

7. III. The manly-woman is the second stage, in which Orlando encounters significant life transformation. A. The manly-woman stage initiates from Orlando’s second trance in Constantinople.

8. B. In the second stage, Orlando, learning how to act like a woman, does not seem to be bothered by his sudden change from one sex to the other. C. Orlando adopts the strategy of cross-dressing to straddle between the world of two sexes.

9. III. The third stage, being, is the union of the first and second stage. A. The third stage, which is called being, can be deemed as the stage of multiple sexuality as well as inner combination of masculinity and femininity.

10. B. The being stage is Orlando’s thorough perception about his/her various selves.

11. Conclusion • To pin down Orlando as a man or a woman is a futile endeavor, for he/she vacillates between two sexes. He may be a physical man but inside his mind could be the opposite of the surface, and vice versa. Orlando is simply a being, the union of man and woman.

12. Working Bibliography Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: Virginia Woolf. New York: Chelsea House P, 1986. Bowlby, Rachel. Introduction. Orlando: A Biography.By Bowlby. Ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990. Guerin, Wilfred L, et al. A Hand Book of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

13. Huang, Qian-fang. “Women’s Travels in Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage out and Orlando.” MA thesis. National Kaohsiugn Normal U, 2003. Lee, Hermione. The Novels of Virginia Woolf. London: Methuen, 1977.

14. Woolf, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography. Hertfordshire, Eng.: Wordsworth, 1995. Wang, Shu-fang. “Or/And: The Sexual/Textual (Ex)Tensions in Orlando: A Biography.” MA thesis. National Kaohsiugn Normal U, 1998.

15. The End Thank you for your attention!