Clothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando Essay -- Virginia Wool

turn and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando In her novel Orlando, Virginia Woolf tells the story of a valet who one night mysteriously becomes a woman. By shrouding Orlandos actual gender transpose in a mysterious religious rite, we readers are pressured to not wonder the actual mechanics of the depart simply rather to focus on its consequences. In doing this, we are invited to answer one of the fundamental questions of our lives, a question that we so often ignore because it seems so very basic - what is a man? What is a woman? And how do we distinguish between the two? It seems that in modal(a) life, we are most potential to distinguish between a man and a woman by clothing. This is more difficult to do in the bear day, in which women have adequate much traditionally male clothing for their own use, but in the time arrests in which Orlando is set it was still the skid that men and women wore distinct clothing. If we canvass our everyday experience, it becomes clear that this is the means we use, at least from a distance. Other cues such as hairstyle, quality of voice, and so on enter the equation later, but clothing comes first. A man with long hair is eccentric at worst a man wearing a dress runs the risk of cosmos beaten to a pulp for this transgression. People wishing to undergo a sex-change operation must undergo a period of living as the oppositeness gender before going through with surgery - the first and most important thing invariably done here(predicate) is to purchase a advanced wardrobe. So, if clothes are the cues that we use to differentiate the two genders, then it is no surprise that Orlandos sex change takes place when it does. In the opening paragraph of Chapter Four, upon Orlandos firing from Turkey, Woolf writes... ...ch woman when in fact it is not very clear what she is. Woolf posits that her choice of clothing points to something deeper Clothes are but a symbol of something deep beneath. It was a change in Orlando herse lf that dictated her choice of a womans dress and of a womans sex (188). If only it were possible for us to change our genders and all the social baggage that comes with them merely by changing our clothing? But Orlandos life is in some ways magical, and this makes it possible. Works Cited and ConsultedBoehm, Beth A. Fact, Fiction, and Metafiction Blurred Gen(d)res in Orlando and A Room of Ones Own. journal of Narrative Technique 223 (1992) 191-204.Thompson, Nicola. Some Theories of Ones Own Orlando and the Novel. Studies in the Novel 253 (1993) 306-17.Woolf, Virginia. Orlando A Biography. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1992. Clothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando Essay -- Virginia WoolClothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando In her novel Orlando, Virginia Woolf tells the story of a man who one night mysteriously becomes a woman. By shrouding Orlandos actual gender change in a mysterious religious rite, we readers are pressured to not question the actu al mechanics of the change but rather to focus on its consequences. In doing this, we are invited to answer one of the fundamental questions of our lives, a question that we so often ignore because it seems so very basic - what is a man? What is a woman? And how do we distinguish between the two? It seems that in ordinary life, we are most likely to distinguish between a man and a woman by clothing. This is more difficult to do in the present day, in which women have adapted much traditionally male clothing for their own use, but in the time periods in which Orlando is set it was still the case that men and women wore distinct clothing. If we consider our everyday experience, it becomes clear that this is the means we use, at least from a distance. Other cues such as hairstyle, quality of voice, and so on enter the equation later, but clothing comes first. A man with long hair is eccentric at worst a man wearing a dress runs the risk of being beaten to a pulp for this transgression. People wishing to undergo a sex-change operation must undergo a period of living as the opposite gender before going through with surgery - the first and most important thing invariably done here is to purchase a new wardrobe. So, if clothes are the cues that we use to differentiate the two genders, then it is no surprise that Orlandos sex change takes place when it does. In the opening paragraph of Chapter Four, upon Orlandos departure from Turkey, Woolf writes... ...ch woman when in fact it is not very clear what she is. Woolf posits that her choice of clothing points to something deeper Clothes are but a symbol of something deep beneath. It was a change in Orlando herself that dictated her choice of a womans dress and of a womans sex (188). If only it were possible for us to change our genders and all the social baggage that comes with them merely by changing our clothing? But Orlandos life is in some ways magical, and this makes it possible. Works Cited and ConsultedBoehm, Bet h A. Fact, Fiction, and Metafiction Blurred Gen(d)res in Orlando and A Room of Ones Own. Journal of Narrative Technique 223 (1992) 191-204.Thompson, Nicola. Some Theories of Ones Own Orlando and the Novel. Studies in the Novel 253 (1993) 306-17.Woolf, Virginia. Orlando A Biography. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1992.