An Interpretation Of Androgyny In Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

Regarded as one of the most eminent modernist writers in English literature, Virginia Woolfdevoted herself to the innovation of novel writing all her life，breaking away from literaryconventions, transcending gender opposition and limitation and reconstructing women’svalues. Androgyny was first put forward by Woolf in her works. Orlando, one of her writings,is regarded as one of her best works by many reviewers, in which her distinct androgynythought presents more representatively. The thesis attempts to interpret Orlando in the lightof androgyny theory. It mainly gives a detailed analysis of characterization and the uniquewriting techniques. The characterization primarily expounds Orlando’s struggle, vacillation,challenge of hegemony of heterosexuality and self-development which she has experiencedafter sex change. Orlando gradually reaches the androgynous state from women’smarginalization, and then the binary opposition system is deconstructed, achieving the perfectintegration of two genders. And the unique narrative techniques mainly focus on analyzing anapplication of time diversity, poeticization of the narrative language and personalization ofthe narrative way in Orlando. Narrative techniques and androgyny thought are ingeniouslyblended by Woolf in this novel, through which she endeavors to abandon the genderdiscrimination and transcend the gender opposition. Therefore her thought on androgyny canbe totally interpreted in it.