Friday, February 20, 2009
Orlando
Androgyny and gender-bending and fluidity of time are all themes we discussed in class. The simplicity which Woolf just changes Orlando's sex is one of the most innovative and confusing parts of this whole novel. I think the idea that gender is socially constructed is only part of what Woolf was trying to get us to question. Her focus on the attraction which precedes sexual identification seems to suggest that personhood should trump sexual identification. I don't know if that is possible because so much of personhood is tied together with our biology. By getting us to question Orlando's very biology and observe how much of his/her identity is based on societal construction, Woolf allows us to look beyond the labels to the person beneath.
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3 comments:
You need to bring this up in class. I'm fascinated by the idea that the self trumps gender in sexual attraction. This is definitely the opposite of DHL's "primal" understanding of sexuality in LCL. What is gender, then, to Woolf?
A curt answer would be, gender is just a state of mind. Maybe that is why she avoided explicitly detailing the sex Orlando was having.
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