Virginia Woolf: A Modernist Must for Modern College Students
Before there was Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, there was Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Known for her modernist writing, both in regards to structure and theme, Woolf explores gender identity and fluidity in her novel Orlando, a fantastical text truly demonstrating that she was ahead of her time. Perhaps her involvement with the Bloomsbury Group, a cohort comprised of English intellectuals who routinely convened in Bloomsbury, London, led Woolf to develop her controversial and widely popular text. They, as a group, were committed to the arts, and they imbued their works with contemporary and liberal attitudes related to politics, feminism, and sexuality. In early 1920, Woolf birthed Orlando, a book about a protagonist who is born a man but mysteriously transforms into a woman. Through Orlando’s eyes, readers witness the character navigating the world through a lens of androgyny over the course of 300 years. Initially, he gallivants through Elizabethan England as a handsome nobleman in Elizabeth’s court, capable of charming women with his wit, but he then shifts into a woman after waking from a deep sleep while on a mission to Constantinople. Although he is curious about the change, Orlando embraces the transformation. Over the course of another hundred years, Orlando realizes that it is in fact advantageous to be a woman.
The evolution of Woolf’s protagonist is remarkable; at times Orlando is decidedly masculine and other times undeniably feminine. Furthermore, Woolf demonstrates her mastery of stream-of-consciousness by allowing readers to see the internal transition that impacts Orlando’s response to the external world. However, the passing of centuries also makes this piece significant, as arguably the protagonist embraces both masculine and feminine personas to meet the demands of an ever-changing New World.
Trivia:
Virginia Woolf spent a great amount of time journaling. Her daily entries became a space where she could explore and experiment with her craft. After she died, her husband, Leonard Woolf, published all of her journals. When the journals are read with her novels, readers will see the process by which she created many of her greatest works.
Favorite Orlando Quotations:
“A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one.”
“By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. ‘Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.”
“Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the Earth.”