Notes on the Text

By referring to the English landscape, the narrator establishes a voice of glib authority, of common understanding that what the narrator (Orlando's biographer) states is true "of course." This explains, also, the narrator's later expression of the differences between men and women as simple matters of fact upon which all readers would, of necessity, agree. Thus, the narrator mimics the voice of nineteenth-century (male) scholars who supported arguments about women's supposed inferiority as simple fact, despite the arguments of those who challenged these assumptions, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).

"Orlando hid her manuscripts" is one way of saying that Orlando acts differently from how she was when Orlando was a male, when he proudly showed them to others. Further, this behavior, as the others which the narrator chronicles in the next few sentences--"modesty as to her writing, her vanity as to her person, her fears for her safety"--is female behavior, and is gendered as female and judged to be inferior to male traits.

The "philosopher" that the narrator refers to here is probably Woolf herself.

Clothes, which represent gender, change our view of the world and how the world views us; as gender changes our views and how the world views us. Orlando's change is outwardly visible in his/her clothes, but in fact the change is more profound than merely dress.

These are examples of how men treat women with consideration only because they are women.

These are examples of how women treat men with consideration only because they are men.

Clothes, representing gender, shape us more than we can shape gender expectations.

Here, Woolf argues that clothes shape our behaviors. Clothing differences, according to the Wolfe, even affect the ways in which men and women engage the world--men directly, women indirectly. Thus. gender difference forces differences in behaviors.

According to the narrator, however, gender difference is the same as sex difference; physical differences create different behaviors.

This change is not merely in Orlando's behavior but instead something even more fundamental.

Here, suddenly, the narrator's voice switches into Woolf's voice.

According to Woolf, what is good about Orlando is that she is able to capture the qualities of both male and female. This is a reference to what Woolf thought was so wonderful about Vita Sackville-West.

In this section Woolf's narrator breaks the following characteristics down by gender (male characteristics highlighted in blue, and female characteristics highlighted in pink--how cliché!):

For it was this mixture in her of man and woman, one being uppermost and then the other, that often gave her conduct an unexpected turn. The curious of her own sex would argue, for example, if Orlando was a woman, how did she never take more than ten minutes to dress? And were not her clothes chosen rather at random, and sometimes worn rather shabby? And then they would say, still, she has none of the formality of a man, or a man's love of power. She is excessively tender-hearted. She could not endure to see a donkey beaten or a kitten drowned. Yet again, they noted, she detested household matters, was up at dawn and out among the fields in summer before the sun had risen. No farmer knew more about the crops than she did. She could drink with the best and liked games of hazard. She rode well and drove six horses at a gallop over London Bridge. Yet again, though bold and active as a man, it was remarked that the sight of another in danger brought on the most womanly palpitations. She would burst into tears on slight provocation. She was unversed in geography, found mathematics intolerable, and held some caprices which are more common among women than men, as for instance that to travel south is to travel downhill.

Above, the narrator had differentiated as follows:

For example, it may have been observed that Orlando hid her manuscripts when interrupted. Next, that she looked long and intently in the glass; and now, as she drove to London, one might notice her starting and suppressing a cry when the horses galloped faster than she liked. Her modesty as to her writing, her vanity as to her person, her fears for her safety all seem to hint that what was said a short time ago about there being no change in Orlando the man and Orlando the woman, was ceasing to be altogether true. She was becoming a little more modest, as women are, of her brains, and a little more vain, as women are, of her person. Certain susceptibilities were asserting themselves, and others were diminishing.

Back to Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography (1928)

Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender for History 182 (Women's History and Feminist Theory), The Department of History, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York. Send email to lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu
Fall Semester 1997. Last modified: Wednesday 26 November 1997