"Beyond Binary: Exploring Gender Identity and Fluidity in Virginia Woolf's Orlando"
1. Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Date: 5 April 2024
"Beyond Binary: Exploring
Gender Identity and Fluidity
in Virginia Woolf's Orlando"
Sem 2 | Batch 2023-25
Khushi Rathod
2. "Beyond Binary: Exploring
Gender Identity and Fluidity
in Virginia Woolf's Orlando"
Prepared by Khushi Rathod
Department of English, MKUB
3. Personal Information
Name : Khushi R. Rathod
Roll No : 16
Enrollment No : 5108230039
Semester : 2
Paper No : 106
Paper Code : 22399
Paper Name : The Twentieth Century Literature : 1900 to World War II
Topic : "Beyond Binary: Exploring Gender Identity and Fluidity in Virginia Woolf's Orlando"
Presented at : Smt. S.B.Gardi, Department of English,MKBU
E-mail : khushirathod1863@gmail.com
4. Table of contents
1. Introduction of Virginia Woolf
2. Overview of Orlando
3. Gender Identity in Orlando
● Gender Identity : S.D. Beauvoir’s Viewpoint
4. The Fluidity of Being: Orlando's Metamorphosis
and the Androgynous Ideal
5. Woolf's Commentary on Gender
5. Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was a pioneering English
writer and a key figure in the modernist literary
movement. She is renowned for her innovative narrative
techniques and exploration of complex themes such as
gender, identity, and consciousness. Woolf's works often
challenge societal norms and conventions, making her a
significant figure in feminist literature.
● Key works :-
1. "Mrs. Dalloway,"
2. "To the Lighthouse,"
3. "A Room of One's Own."
6. Overview of Orlando
● "Orlando" is a novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1928.
● It's a fanciful biographical novel paying homage to Vita Sackville-West's family
history, particularly centered around their country estate at Knole.
● The story begins in 1588 with a 16-year-old boy named Orlando who writes a poem
called "The Oak Tree."
● Orlando gains favor at the Elizabethan court and falls in love with a Russian princess.
● He engages in literary discussions with Sir Nicholas Greene, modeled after Sir
Edmund Gosse.
● Later, during the reign of Charles II, Orlando becomes ambassador to Constantinople
and is rewarded with a dukedom.
● One night, Orlando mysteriously transforms into a beautiful woman.
(Britannica)
7. CONTINUE….
● One night, Orlando mysteriously transforms into a beautiful woman.
● As a woman, Orlando experiences different aspects of life, from intellectual London society to bawdy street life.
● She marries for respectability during the Victorian era.
● By 1928, Orlando is back in London and reunites with Greene, who offers to find a publisher for "The Oak Tree."
● The novel ends with Orlando standing under the great oak at her country estate, reminiscing about her centuries of
adventures.
● The novel explores themes of androgyny and the creative life of women.
● "Orlando" marked a departure from Woolf's introspective works and brought financial success due to its spectacular
sales.
● Readers praised the book's fluid style, wit, and complex plot.
(Britannica)
8. Gender Identity in Orlando
● Orlando begins the novel as a 16th century nobleman exhibiting traditional
masculine traits, but also displays some feminine qualities, hinting at an
underlying androgyny.
● At age 30, Orlando inexplicably transforms into a woman overnight while in
Constantinople. This magical gender change is never explained.
● As a woman in later centuries, Orlando maintains the same core identity and
personality from when she was a man. Her outward appearance changed, but
her inner self remained intact.
● Orlando experiences life from the perspectives of both genders. She
incorporates what she learned as a man to navigate the world as a woman.
● Orlando marries a man and bears a child, further blurring traditional gender
binaries by experiencing both masculine and feminine roles.
● By the end, Orlando fully embodies an androgynous gender identity - neither
wholly male nor female, but an amalgamation of gender traits and
experiences within one persona.
(Melita)
9. Gender Identity : S.D. Beauvoir’s Viewpoint
1. De Beauvoir argues that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" and that femininity is
socially constructed rather than biologically determined. This notion is reflected in Orlando, where
the protagonist seamlessly transitions from a man to a woman, suggesting that gender is fluid and
socially defined rather than fixed by biology.
2. De Beauvoir maintains that feminine gender roles are imposed on women by patriarchal culture and
civilization as a whole. This idea resonates in Orlando, as the protagonist notices distinct differences
in how society expects and views her as a woman compared to when she was a man.
3. De Beauvoir believes women must achieve economic and social equity to overcome their prescribed
status as the "Other" in relation to men. Orlando as a woman confronts the limitations placed on her
gender by the male-dominated, patriarchal societies she lives through.
4. The novel exemplifies De Beauvoir's argument that masculinity and femininity are cultural
constructs by depicting Orlando exhibiting both masculine and feminine traits across different eras,
blurring the lines of gender binaries.
(Yazdani)
10. ● Woolf challenges rigid gender binaries by depicting Orlando transitioning
seamlessly from a male to a female body, suggesting gender is fluid and
transcends physical sex.
● Orlando displays an androgynous temperament, combining masculine and
feminine qualities - being brave and strong like a man, yet also sensitive and
delicate like a woman.
● The novel portrays gender identity as socially constructed rather than
biologically determined, aligning with Beauvoir's view that "one is not born,
but rather becomes, a woman."
(Li and Zhong)
The Fluidity of Being: Orlando's Metamorphosis
and the Androgynous Ideal
11. ● Orlando's gender fluidity allows the expression of both masculine and
feminine perspectives, reflecting Woolf's belief that artistic creation requires
an "androgynous mind" blending the two.
● The ambiguity around Orlando's sexual orientation and the absence of a clear
father figure during pregnancy further dilute rigid gender roles and norms.
● Through Orlando's transcendence of gender boundaries, Woolf advocates for
an "androgynous vision" that appreciates gender differences while moving
towards freedom, equality and harmony between the masculine and
feminine.
(Li and Zhong)
The Fluidity of Being: Orlando's Metamorphosis
and the Androgynous Ideal
12. Woolf's Commentary on Gender
● In Orlando, Woolf presents androgyny not as a seamless synthesis of genders, but as an "intermix"
where masculine and feminine qualities alternate and coexist without fully merging. Orlando changes
biological sex from male to female, but the narrator states "Orlando remained precisely as he had
been" despite the change.
● Woolf uses the figure of androgyny to challenge rigid gender binaries and ideas of incommensurable
sexual difference that were prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries, influenced by evolutionary
science and nationalism.
● However, Woolf is ambivalent in her depictions of androgyny - sometimes portraying it as a positive
hybrid form that resists gender norms, other times invoking romantic ideals of an androgynous
synthesis that transcends gender entirely (as in A Room of One's Own).
● The novel connects gender fluidity to issues of race and sexuality as well. Woolf uses racialized,
Orientalist imagery to code androgyny and same-sex desires as exotic but also retaining
femininity/desirability.
● While destabilizing gender categories, Orlando largely maintains racial purity for the protagonist,
using imagery of marble and blank surfaces to reinforce whiteness. (Kaivola)
14. Conclusion
In brief, Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" challenges conventional understandings of
gender identity by depicting a protagonist who transitions seamlessly between
genders, embodying both masculine and feminine traits. Echoing Simone de
Beauvoir's idea of gender as socially constructed, Woolf advocates for a more fluid
and inclusive conception of identity. However, while pushing these boundaries, the
novel also reflects limitations and complexities, particularly in its treatment of race
and sexuality.
15. Reference
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Orlando". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Mar. 2024,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Orlando-by-Woolf. Accessed 4 April 2024.
Kaivola, Karen. “Revisiting Woolf’s Representations of Androgyny: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Nation.” Tulsa
Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 18, no. 2, 1999, pp. 235–61. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/464448. Accessed 4
Apr. 2024.
Li, Jiawen, and Jingdong Zhong. “International Journal of Social Science And Human Research.” A Study on the
Gender Fluidity of the Protagonist in Orlando from the Androgyny Vision, 6 June 2022, ijsshr.in/v5i6/22.php.
Accessed 04 Apr. 2024.
16. Reference
Melita, Maureen M., and Muareen M. Melita. “GENDER IDENTITY AND ANDROGYNY IN LUDOVICO
ARIOSTO’S ‘ORLANDO FURIOSO’AND VIRGINIA WOOLF’S ‘ORLANDO: A BIOGRAPHY.’” Romance
Notes, vol. 53, no. 2, 2013, pp. 123–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43803261. Accessed 4 Apr. 2024.
Yazdani, Saeed. “(PDF) A Modernist Perspective: the Concept of Gender Identity in Woolf's Orlando, from the
Viewpoint of S. D. Beauvoir.” ResearchGate, September 2014,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290119722_A_Modernist_Perspective_the_Concept_of_Gender_Identity
_in_Woolf's_Orlando_from_the_Viewpoint_of_S_D_Beauvoir. Accessed 4 April 2024.
