Holding hands with Virginia Woolf: a map of Orlando's functional subversion
- UNCW Author/Contributor (non-UNCW co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Aimee Wilson (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW )
- Web Site: http://library.uncw.edu/
- Advisor
- Katherine Montwieler
Abstract: As hard as we might try, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography proves difficult
to peg: is the eponymous character a man or a woman? Is she thirty or three hundred
years old? And in terms of style, is the work a biography, a love letter, or a novel? Is it
possible to determine where its fiction stops and its non-fiction starts? Furthermore, it is
even desirable to draw this kind of distinct border around the text? Instead of trying to
find yet another way to categorize Orlando and Orlando, this essay uses reader-response
theory to examine Woolf’s writing style as one that walks a middle ground between
polarizing and assuring, and the confusing tension wrought therein that makes Orlando a
functionally radical text. For as discomfiting as the reading of Orlando might be, the work
was Woolf’s biggest commercial success to date: some 8,000 copies of the book sold
within the first six months. This thesis offers a map of how the text creates a location
wherein challenges to the urge to draw boundaries is acceptable – even enticing – rather
than off-putting. Woolf’s use of strategically-placed, sophisticated rhetorical techniques
help readers scale the text’s sex and gender nomadism as they move toward a space of
acceptance and knowability.
Holding hands with Virginia Woolf: a map of Orlando's functional subversion
PDF (Portable Document Format)
356 KB
Created on 1/1/2009
Views: 15106
Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
- Language: English
- Date: 2009
- Keywords
- Woolf Virginia 1882-1941 Orlando: a biography--Criticism and interpretation
- Subjects
- Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941. Orlando: a biography -- Criticism and interpretation