It’s common for readers and critics of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography to immediately categorize her novel as a loose interpretation of a biography. In fact, analyzers and historians have proved the connections between her novel’s characters, as well as, its events. , The parallelism even stated in the title as a biography.
However, it is worth arguing that writing a holiday biography was neither Woolf’s first nor only intention. A thorough analysis presents a theme of sexual ambiguity to satirize the popular Western “superiority.” Looking past the obvious parallels between Woolf’s reality and Orlando’s reality, and the supposition of Orlando being a biography, the reader can see that the main character actually functions as a means for Woolf to satirize the standard idea of Western superiority.
Since the dawn of time Western society, namely the United Kingdom, has colonized and controlled most of the world’s population and land. They backed their rights for control through a belief called Manifest Destiny. This belief allowed them to colonize and control any land …show more content…
It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilised and uses all its faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine” (Kaivola 3). Woolf suggests that the androgynous mind is the fusion of masculine and feminine mind and that this fusion creates the ultimate, most fertilized mind. Although subjective, an androgynous mind nevertheless provides “subversive potential for both women and mean, its ability to figure a creative and promising alternative to the rigid gender roles” (Kaivola 4). Androgyny does not force neither a structured nor rigid way of being a man or woman, unlike that of Western society. It allows free fluctuation between either gender and even the fusion of both
However, it is worth arguing that writing a holiday biography was neither Woolf’s first nor only intention. A thorough analysis presents a theme of sexual ambiguity to satirize the popular Western “superiority.” Looking past the obvious parallels between Woolf’s reality and Orlando’s reality, and the supposition of Orlando being a biography, the reader can see that the main character actually functions as a means for Woolf to satirize the standard idea of Western superiority.
Since the dawn of time Western society, namely the United Kingdom, has colonized and controlled most of the world’s population and land. They backed their rights for control through a belief called Manifest Destiny. This belief allowed them to colonize and control any land …show more content…
It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilised and uses all its faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine” (Kaivola 3). Woolf suggests that the androgynous mind is the fusion of masculine and feminine mind and that this fusion creates the ultimate, most fertilized mind. Although subjective, an androgynous mind nevertheless provides “subversive potential for both women and mean, its ability to figure a creative and promising alternative to the rigid gender roles” (Kaivola 4). Androgyny does not force neither a structured nor rigid way of being a man or woman, unlike that of Western society. It allows free fluctuation between either gender and even the fusion of both