Name::- Sneha Agravat
Batch:- 2020-22 (MA sem 2)
Paper 6:- Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World war 2
Topic name:- Critical evaluation of Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Roll no.:-16
Enrollment no.:-3069206420200001
E-mail Id :- snehaagravat2000@gmail.com
Submitted to:- S.B.Gardi Department Of English Maharaja krishnkumarsinhji Bhavngar University
Critical evaluation of Orlando
Introduction:-
Orlando is a novel written by Virginia Woolf. Firstly published in October 1928, this novel is a biography of Vita-Sackville West, Woolf’s lover. This novel spans three centuries, following Orlando’s life changes and adventures. It is a pillar in the Modernist era. Indeed, it tackles themes such as same-sex love, genre transition, or transhistory. It also include narrative scheme and tropes very typical to the Modernist era.Orlando, Virginia Woolf's sixth major novel, is a fantastic historical biography, which spans almost 400 years in the lifetime of its protagonist. The novel was conceived as a "writer's holiday" from more structured and demanding novels. Woolf allowed neither time nor gender to constrain her writing.
What is this novel about?
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando ‘The longest and most charming love letter in literature’, playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf’s close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth’s England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. . As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women. (Goodreads Synopsis.)
Key Facts:-
Full Title Orlando: a Biography
Author:-Virginia Woolf
Type Of Work:- Novel
Genre:- Fictional biography
Time And Place:- Written Woolf wrote Orlando from her home in London, 1927–1928, between To the Lighthouse and The Waves
Date Of First Publication October 11, 1928, the date given in the last line of the novel
Publisher:- Hogarth Press
Narrator:- Third-person, omniscient narrator; an unreliable "biographer" who changes style and tone to suit the changes of Orlando's life
Climax The climax occurs when Orlando finds herself in the present day, 1928, and she is forced to acknowledge her own nature as a multitude of selves and experiences within one person.
Protagonist:- Orlando
Setting (Time):-1588 to 1928
Setting (Place) :- Mostly in England (London and Kent), but 1660–1685 are spent on an excursion to Constantinople and the hills of Turkey.
Short Summary of the novel:-
The first chapter begins by presenting Orlando’s physical appearance and by mentioning the fact that he is a young man from a noble family. Orlando hopes that one day he will be able to go on adventures just like his family did. Instead of being an explorer, Orlando is a poet who likes to contemplate nature and spend his time on the hills overlooking London. One day, Queen Elizabeth I comes to visit and she likes Orlando instantly. Two years after they first meet, the Queen makes Orlando her treasurer and steward. Orlando makes the mistake of kissing another girl, and he is caught by the Queen. Orlando also develops a liking for spending his time with ordinary people, but he soon becomes bored of it and decides to return to the court.
He finds out that the Queen has died and that she was replaced by King James I. Orlando thinks about marrying one of the ladies at the court. He decides to marry Euphrosyne, a woman coming from a noble family, just like him. The lawyers from Orlando’s side and from Euphrosyne’s side start to make legal arrangements, but the procedures stop when the Great Frost begins. It is during that harsh winter Orlando meets Sasha, a Russian princess, for the first time. They fall in love, but Sasha grows tired of Orlando’s moods and eventually runs off with another man.
Orlando begins to write extensively: plays, poems and other forms of literature. A few years later, he meets with Nick Green, a famous author whom Orlando admires. Green is described as being awkward, a short man who is out of his element inside Orlando’s big house. Orlando is disappointed by Mr. Green; after he finds that Green wrote a satirical story based on him, Orlando decides to stop writing and spend his time trying to find the answers to the big philosophical questions about life.
After a while, he decides to write again but for his own pleasure. He also begins to refurnish his home; after he finishes, he invites his neighbors over to see his house and to hear the poem he finished. One day, he sees a woman from his window and Orlando falls in love with her. Not wanting to be trapped in a relationship where he is only attracted by the woman’s physical appearance, Orlando asks the King to send him to Constantinople to be an ambassador. From the third chapter, the reader finds that Orlando played an important role in the negotiations between King Charles and the Turks but the records about Orlando’s deeds were lost. Orlando is well received by the people in Constantinople and he organizes parties frequently. After one such party, the servants see Orlando letting down a rope and bringing a woman into his room. They later find that he married a dancer named Rosina Pepita, but they are unable to ask him details as he falls into a trance from which he doesn’t wake for a few days.
While Orlando is in a trance, a civil war starts and the rebels find Orlando in his bed. Not knowing what to do with him, they steal his clothes and then they leave him be. After the rebels leave, three spirits appear around Orlando; each spirit tries to claim him but is unsuccessful. The spirits leave when they hear a trumpet blast; Orlando wakes up naked in his bed and in a woman’s body. Orlando is not scared and accepts the change that happened. Orlando leaves Constantinople with a gypsy on a donkey and then later joins a gypsy tribe. The elder of the gypsy tribe is displeased to see Orlando spending her time reading and contemplating nature, thinking that such actions are useless. One day, Orlando has a vision and sees her home in England destroyed. After that, she decides to return to England and leave the gypsy tribe behind.
Orlando buys female clothes and returns to England. While sailing to England, she slowly becomes accustomed to being a female. While Orlando is happy that she is now free to think about love and nature as long as she wants, she doesn’t like the feeling of powerlessness she has when she is in the presence of men. When she arrives home, her servants start to serve her again, but she also finds that some people have started lawsuits against her. Orlando sees Archduchess Harriet again, but she tells Orlando that she is actually a man called Harry and that he only pretended to be a woman so she could get closer to Orlando. Harry asks Orlando to marry him, but Orlando doesn’t answer right away. They begin to spend time together, but Orlando soon loses interest in him. Orlando goes to London and the narrator notes the changes that took place in her and how she changes more and more into a woman. While in London, she meets Harry again and Orlando is annoyed that she can’t get away from him. The ladies in London all want to meet Orlando, so she enters the London society. Despite this, she is unhappy and doesn’t find fulfillment in her life.
One day, the Countess of R- invites Orlando to one of her parties. Orlando goes, knowing that the Countess organizes parties where the best people are invited. It is there that Orlando meets Pope, and then she starts to spend her time with writers. She soon becomes unhappy because she realizes that the men around her don’t appreciate her for her intellect. Orlando begins to dress again in men’s clothes; then, one night, while she is in the park, she begins to talk with a prostitute named Nelly who invites Orlando to go with her. After Orlando reveals that she is a woman, Nelly and her friends tell her their life stories. From that point on, Orlando begins to switch from woman’s clothes to men’s clothes, depending on her mood and state. The end of the chapter presents Orlando sitting and watching the clouds over London at the turn of the century.
The fifth chapter begins with a description about London that creates the impression of excess to the point that it becomes suffocating. The action takes place 300 years after Orlando began to write his poem, and the world has changed a lot since then. Orlando goes home, but her home feels cold and empty; there, she meditates on how much she has changed in the last years. She feels like the age in which she lives is too constricting, but she realizes that she must conform to the age, so she decides to marry. Orlando goes and takes a walk; in nature, she finds happiness. She falls down and breaks her ankle when she is near a lake. She is saved by a man named Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and they get engaged immediately. They spend a lot of time together, and soon they realize that they are the opposite of what they said they are: Shel is a woman and Orlando was a man. Orlando and Shel spend almost all their time together, but their time comes to an end when the wind changes and Shel leaves to sail again. They are married in a simple ceremony before Shel takes off.
Alone, Orlando thinks about writing again but doesn’t want to submit to the spirit of the age. Despite this, she finishes her poem, The Oak Tree. Orlando goes to London where she meets Nick Green, now a wealthy writer and critic. He reads her poem and promises to publish it while assuring her that the poem will be well received. After that, she goes to the park where she has a vision of her husband’s ship sinking. She goes then and sends him a telegram. Orlando returns home and spends a good deal of time doing little there. When the narrator picks up the story again, Orlando has given birth to a son.
The year is now 1928, though Orlando is still in her mid-30s. Orlando is frightened by the present, but she is also amazed by the new inventions of the age. Orlando returns home; she thinks about all her past identities and how the house was always with her. She is thrust out of her reverie when she hears an explosion. Orlando runs to the oak tree and plans to bury her book of poetry there, but eventually she decides not to. Orlando knows that her husband will soon come home again and prepares for her husband’s arrival. When the clock strikes midnight, it is October 11, 1928.
Character list of novel:-
1)Orlando:-The protagonist of the novel, Orlando is a wealthy nobleman who is adventurous and artistic.
2)Princess Sasha:-Sasha is a Russian princess, a Muscovite, who travels by ship to England to the court of King James I.
3)Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Esquire:-
4)Archduchess Henrietta / Archduke Harry:-The Archduchess Henrietta who Orlando first sees riding on a horse through the courtyards of his home.
5)Shel:- A brave, gallant seaman, Shel sweeps Orlando off her feet in the nineteenth century when he sees her hurt on the moor.
6)Sir Nicholas Greene:-He is generally an unhappy man, completely enraptured by his own ill-health.
7)Mr. Pope:-In real life, Alexander Pope, a poet of the eighteenth-century.
8)Rustum:-The old gypsy man of the tribe in the hills of Turkey.
9)Queen Elizabeth I:-Queen Elizabeth is a noble, older woman who is very accustomed to having power and control.
10)Rosina Pepita:-A Spanish woman in Turkey, Rosina's marriage to Orlando lasts only a day before Rosina falls into a deep trance.
11)Clorinda:-One of the first women Orlando dated when he was a member of King James's court.
12)Favilla:-The second of Orlando's loves at King James's court, Favilla was the daughter of a poor Somersetshire gentleman.
13)Euphrosyne:-The third of Orlando's loves at the court of King James.
Themes of the novel:-
Fact and Imagination:-
One of the most important themes in Orlando is the connection between fact and imagination.The metaphor of granite and rainbow emerges again in her own novel when she discusses Nature "who has played so many queer tricks upon us, making us so unequally of clay and diamonds, of rainbow and granite, and stuffed them into a case."
Gender differences:-
The determination of difference between the genders is a main theme in Orlando. Are men and women really different? If so, why? Orlando's sex change is a very important scene for determining the answers to these questions. As Orlando wakes up a woman, she looks at her body in a full-length mirror and composedly walks to her bath.
Conforming to society:-
As Orlando is introduced to each new age and each new situation, he changes himself to fit the rules of those around him. In the sixteenth century, he wears fine clothes and serves as a courtier to his Queen; in the seventeenth century, he learns the Turkish language and adapts himself to exotic customs.
Symbols:-
Clouds over London:-
The clouds over London which move in at the end of chapter four mark the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. The clouds indicate unhappiness at the oppressive nature of Victorian rules and social conventions, especially for women like Orlando.
Orlando's manor house:-
Orlando's large home is mentioned frequently throughout the novel. It appears as a static and safe element in a chaotic and changing world. The house symbolically has 365 bedrooms and fifty-two stairways (the number of days in a year, and the number of weeks in a year, respectively).
Motifs:-
Poetry:-
In every situation and adventure, Orlando carries with him the manuscript of his poem "the Oak Tree." When he begins the poem, he means it as a place to 'anchor his heart.' And indeed, the poem does become his anchor; the one thing which connects all his selves together.
Cross-dressing:-
Cross-dressing in Orlando occurs fairly frequently. Archduke Harry dresses as a woman but reveals himself to be a man in chapter four. Similarly, even after Orlando's actual sex change, he continues to switch between clothes of both genders. This motif functions in the novel to emphasize the similarities between men and women, despite the different clothes (and different roles) society would have them wear.
Conclusion:- in sum up we can say that In Orlando, Woolf mocks such an attempt to present the facts. By only presenting the external life, Woolf felt that an "official" biography fails to capture the essence of its subject. Although the 'biographer' in Woolf's novel claims to be limited by documents and records, she fully explains Orlando's internal thoughts, feelings, and reflections. In this way, Orlando challenges the traditional notion of truth in description.
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