Thinking activity on Orlando: A biography

Here I am presenting my thinking activity on Orlando .

  1)   How you look on Metamorphosis, and space of desire in Orlando and " The third space" how it's define or narrate in Orlando ?

Metamorphosis: 

 In a time of war when people were dying, one women was worried about keeping the thing she loved the most alive, literature. During the World War I literature was starting to die off, and something had to be done, literature needed to evolve and change with the time. 

         The tragedy caused grief, but Virginia Woolf wanted to break the old customs of people, and make them more open minded.

          As a woman doing a job that didn’t involve being a housewife or cleaning was not easy, so for Virginia to pursue a career in literature it took bravery. She opened an immense door for future writers who did not follow the old mentality of their predecessors, who wanted to change literature so that it could fit for the time they were living in. Literature was morphing. 

        The first point I will briefly discuss Tiresias but through a different perspective, and instead of sexual, in a more social aspect of life, just as the main character in Virginia Woolf’s story they both had a sex change that altered their perspectives toward life.

           The second point that I will use will revolve around the central idea that Woolf was trying to get across the story which was that the time was changing and literature need to change to stay alive.

      She wanted to alter the old way people looked at writing and at the position of women in society.

 

* Space of desire in Orlando : 

      

In the novel the love relationship transforms when Orlando enters the relationship with Shelmerdine who lets him experience his authentic sexual identity. In this relationship the role of Hermaphrodite or a third person is taken by the fluid sexual identity of both protagonists. 

         Orlando and Shelmerdine are both hermaphrodites, they are male or female in a way that they are on both sides at the same time, but they don't identity two opposition into one and the same, but affirm their distance as something which makes the relationship of one or the other as a relationship of two different individuals. 

             As the empty space between two people has nothing in common with strict division into pure femininity or pure masculinity, we have named it the hermaphroditic paradigm. We see in Orlando metamorphosis, space of desire and the third space. 

2. Speculation and imagination literature can you define this term? How it's represent in Orlando.  

         In the novel Orlando we can see speculation and imagination. Speculation, it means something fiction or without any proper evidence.  

           This novel tells the story of Orlando and his journey to become woman. It is speculative and imaginative story about someone's life.

   

               Virginia Woolf originally intended Orlando to be an imaginative biography of Vita Sackville- West, and a mere joke in comparison to her other books, the final, realized novel contains as much of Virginia's "self" as Vita's, and is of equal personal and creative importance to her typically more seriously considered works. Virginia and Vita had sexual relationship. 

  

               In the novel we see Virginia Woolf write story of Orlando based on Vita Sackville- West, the woman whom she describes as " the central relationship of Woolf's forties".

              Orlando's life traces the history of Vita Sackville- West's family, up to the present day, when Vita was unable to inherit her family estate because she was a woman. In the novel Woolf create imagery character and connect with Vita's life. 

             The golden domes of Constantinople which ornament the setting of Orlando's change from male to female in chapter three, the description of 'The Jessamy Brides' is quite different from the plot of Orlando. 

        In novel's first chapter we can see the description of marvels such as the great frozen river in Mascow.  

Thus ,we can sees the imaginary  character in this novel by Orlando .

 

( 3) How you interpreted trans study's by special reference of Orlando?   

    This novel is about transgender studies. Virginia Woolf here tells story of Vita Sackville West, who is lover of her. Vita is woman and Virginia is woman here they have same gender relations it called homosexuality. In the novel Virginia talks about transgender. 

   

             The culture construction of the duality of gender. This opens up an area beyond or between male and female that can be conceptualized as a 'third space' or pluralisation of genders and sexualities and that is encompassed by the term transgender. 

                 And this novel also about homosexuality because in this novel we find Virginia shows us Shelmerdine and Orlando both's gender changed in the novel. And they have married in the novel. 

            One way to do so is by considering the novel's treatment of Orlando's sexuality in light of his/her history as both a man and a woman. Orlando tracking the trajectories of desire that its protagonist experiences as a man and a woman: first, for Sasha, a Russian woman who initially appears to the male Orlando as masculine; second, for Shelmerdine, a seafaring English man who appears to the female Orlando as feminine.

              These people initially appeal because they are deliciously transgendered, in the broadest sense of the term. In both of these cases, Orlando's desires seem heterosexual because of their parties sexed embodiment. However, his/her desires are queer because they are initiated by the lure of gender ambiguity and defy the assumption that desire must always flow between masculine and feminine. 

   Thus ,here we fine the trans gender in this novel .

4) Are you agree with that in Orlando Instability of Identity? And how you see the Gender Parody and subjectivity in Orlando. 

 In this novel we find the representation of the gender. The focus will be on how novel challenges the traditional concept of gender and gender categories, and novel can give us new perspectives on the concept of gender.

 

             The novel Orlando is full of gender parody. Characters frequently change clothes and perform different gender roles as per the demand of the situation or out of their own desire.  

         Most of the character's gender is ambiguous, let alone Orlando's who midway through the novel undergoes gender change. It is remarkable that the ambiguous, nature of gender that different characters perform is aided by the clothing of one sex and bodily acts, gestures and movements of the other.

             Such type of gender ambiguity appears in the Russian woman called Sasha. The Russian clothing disguises Sasha's sexual identity and thereby creates gender ambiguity.

               Even Orlando's metaphorical description of Sasha like snow, cream of waves of the sea also adds up to her shifting, evanescent, elusive identity. Sasha is not the only character in Orlando with ambiguous gender identity.

             When Archduchess Harriet Griselda appears all of a sudden in Orlando's room in the figure of a very tall lady in ridding hood. The audacity and obduracy of her stare immediately puts Archduchess Harriet's feminine gender into question. 

              After Orlando's gender change and when she is at home there Archduchess come, now known as the Archduke Harry. And tells that "he was a man and always had been one." This shows that the Archduke's previous feminine identity was just a copy of a feminine identity.

            Orlando's continuous switching over gender poles is made possible by the parodic nature of gender itself: "In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself as well as its contingency." 

             The parody is not the parody of original or primary gender but of the very notion of an original then it leads us to agree with Judith Butler who argues that "gender parody reveals that the original identity after which gender fashions itself is an imitation without an origin." 

             In the novel we also find subjectivity and instability of identity. Orlando critiques the notion of unified humanistic subject and the possibility of multiple subjectivities. In Orlando 'constructive figuration of subjectivity' and gendered aspect of subjectivity focusing upon Orlando's "situatedness" in his/her social order and discursive practices of gender.

             Orlando's personality is regarded as integrated until his sex change at the age of thirty. He complies with the accepted gender norms of his society and is regularly rewarded in social hierarchy. Orlando's subjectivity is constituted by his social status. He is favored by the Queen, given vast estate and is made an ambassador by King Charles. 

           Orlando is handsome, pleasant, darling gentleman both to poor working class people and to elites. His subjectivity of all favored lordship is the result not only of his charismatic personality but also of his gender conformity. When Orlando returns to England she has face many problems. Now Orlando as a woman not get any property. Subjectivity in Orlando is highly saturated with gendered experience.

           Orlando as a man feels his complete downfall when his hope are shattered but Orlando the woman does not react so violently when she face problems about property. Orlando as a man is always oriented to power, position and authority desiring control. On the contrary, Orlando as a woman is always worried to come to terms with the tradition and convention. 

           we find subjectivity and gender parody. In novel all characters has dual gender identity.

 

Q - 5. Can you exactly define what is the quest of Orlando in a whole novel according to your reading? 

       In the novel, Woolf balances the main character's isolation with the need for meaningful relationship. In the tradition of the romantic quest, Orlando must overcome obstacles to self-fulfillment in order to release creative energies. The destination of Orlando's quest are three fold: to engage in meaningful relationship; to fully realise her/his poetic power; and to affirm the continual process of her/his self-transformation in spite of obstacles and crises. 

            These ends of Orlando's quest at times appear most clearly in their absence, as the protagonist works to overcome the triple crises of non-relationship stifled creativity and a fixed identity. The majority of the narrative, however, chronicles Orlando's enduring crisis of non-relationship. During the Elizabethan Age alone, Orlando experiences unfulfilling relationships with the following: an old woman and Sasha. The crisis of non-relationship continues as the transgender Archduchess/Archduke Harriet/ Harry stalks Orlando in a relentless and absurd marriage suit, and later, as Orlando grows disillusioned with Augustan Soirees and writers.

             Orlando's two early betrayals in a novel, by the Russian Princess Sasha and by the poet Nick Greene, pose the most serious threats to Orlando's quest for meaningful relationship. Only with Orlando's marriage to the enigmatic Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine does she establish a fulfilling relationship. Orlando and Shelmerdine not only have an uncanny understanding of one another, but they also recognise each other.   

       Thus , we khows by novel that Orlando has poetic quest.

 6) What is sexual ambiguity and magical realism? With special reference of Orlando.

  In the novel Orlando we can see sexual ambiguity and magical realism. The this both specially we can see in the chapter 3 of the novel.  

       In this particular chapter we see Orlando is at Constantinople and his gender changed. When Orlando wake up his gender change he became woman. There we see the magical realism and when Orlando returns to England meet with gipsies. Orland change her clothing, there we see sexual ambiguity.

                The plot of Orlando clearly embodies the novel's revolutionary take on gender and history. Woolf has written the ostensible biography of an English nobleman who lives for nearly four hundred years and changes sex midway through. 

       Orlando hobnobs with Queen Elizabeth I and king James I before falling in love with Sasha, a Russian Princess who ultimately rejects him. He eventually flees to Constantinople, where he serves as an ambassador and inexplicably morphs into a woman. 

       

               The notion of sexual ambiguity encompasses many different ideas. Chief among them is gender, a term used to signal a verity of meanings. The male Orlando is seemingly happy to live life solely as a man, complete with money, status, and privilege, while the female Orlando quickly realises the limitations placed upon her as a woman and choose to revel in endless costume change. 

               Orlando is not the novel's only, or even first, cross-dresser. While a man Orlando is approached in his ancestral home by the Archduchess Harriet, whom he flees when he finds himself falling in love with her. When Orlando returns as a woman to her estate, she is again approached by the Archduchess, who reveals herself to be, rather, Archduke hoping for Orlando's hand in marriage. Orlando do represent the rather abstract concept of sexual ambiguity in a similar, often radical way. 

     Like sexual ambiguity, magical realism attempts to knit together ideas that are too often treated as opposing forces. Chapter 3 will delve into the relationship between sexual ambiguity and magical realism. 

 

  Q - 7. Can we say that it's fictional biography or it's really someone original biography. How you see that. Give your appropriate argument to defend that is it fictional biography or not?

- fictional biography : 

        This novel Woolf write about her lover and close friend Vita Sackville West family background and about Vita's life. Vita and Woolf both are members in Bloomsbury group.  

         Woolf and Vita has sexual relationship. Vita become inspiration for Woolf to writing this novel "Orlando : A Biography". 

                This novel details the life of a man who turns into a woman and lives for centuries. One dominant feature of postmodern fiction is its concern for historiography. 

        This novel directly reflect Woolf's attitude towards traditional and contemporary biographical practices, using biographical frame works to provide historiographical commentary.

                 By writing Orlando as a fictional biography, Woolf challenges the factuality of biographies as a whole, especially those that stray into fiction or do not attempt to give a complete picture of the subject. At many points, the biographer notes that little is know about Orlando's life during a period because he/she spent most time alone. 

                  The biographer acknowledges the fact that those particular parts of the story have been fleshed out with imaginations of Orlando's experiences, which is humorously meta-fictional because, in fact, the entire story of Orlando's life is fictional. 

               In the novel Woolf tells us history about human, specially about woman with the fictional story of Orlando.