| Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928) is a fanciful biography in which real people and imaginary figures, factual and made-up events are smoothly mingled. It traces a story of the title character, who lived an incredibly romanticized life for more than 300 years. The story begins with the life of Orland as a sixteen-year-old nobleman who became a courtier to Queen Elizabeth (approximately in 1586). After the coronation of King James, he ran into a Russian princess and fell in love with her at the very first sight. Unfortunately, he was betrayed by the girl and teased by a poet. Disappointed at the life, he petitioned to go to Turkey and started his diplomatic career as an ambassador during the reign of Charles II. It was during that period that he transformed himself into a thirty-year-old fair lady. The mature female returned to Britain and witnessed the prominence and decline of Swift, Pope, Addison, Boswell, etc through the 17th and 18 centuries. Living on as an androgynous aristocrat through the ages from the early Victorian reign to the "present" 1928, she turned out to be a laureate writer after finishing the poem she had started out with in the 16th century.This thesis attempts to interpret Orlando from the Freudian Psychoanalytic perspective, focusing on the forma] structure and Freudian elements, which are characteristics of the work. It also examines the author's personal life. The study is expected not only to shed new light on the novel itself, but also probe into Woolf, the novelist, in terms of her relationship with the Freudian theories as well as her bisexual personality.Psychoanalytic theories advocate the concept of tripartite personality model (id. ego, superego) as a way of suggesting the fundamental psychic dilemma of the human being. This paper begins with the textual analysis of the formal structure of Orlando. That is: the male Orlando, as a person with wild, untamed passions, is analogous to Freud's id. Androgynous Orlando, as a person with social and moral order, has the attributes of the Freudian superego, that is, with conscience, the morally inhibiting agent of the psyche. As mediator between these opposing forces, female Orlando resembles the poor ego, which tries to keep a healthy balance but is shattered because itis unable to do so.The thesis then goes further to analyze the novel in terms of Freudian concepts, such as libidinal energy, death instinct, sexual symbolism and animal imagery. For Freud, a work of literature is the external expression of the author's unconscious mind. Accordingly, analysts could treat the literary work as dreams, applying psychoanalytic techniques to the text to uncover the author's hidden motivations and textual connotations.Finally, Woolfs personal experience is examined in order to prove that the author's sexual ambivalence is unconsciously reflected in the novel. Orlando is treated to a full paragraph of selfhood and the fullest expression of the androgynous vision. It is found that the real self Woolf has been seeking through her verbal art is just like a wild goose high up in the sky, within sight but beyond reach.
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