Woolf's Feminist Androgynous Vision In Orlando

As a great feminist pioneer, Vriginia Woolf is shinning over the literary arena of the world. Most of critic groups have studied Woolf's works in terms of writing technique—stream of consciousness. With the development of feminism in the second half the 19^th century, the study on Woolf's works reached a climax. This thesis is devoted to analyzing Woolf's feminist thought— androgynous vision in Orlando.As a foremother of feminists, Woolf suffered in the over-manly years as she speculated the conflicts between male and female. And her feminist thought is mainly discussed in her work A Room of One's Own. Ultimately she puts forward her creative androgynous vision that has laid a foundation for feminist literature.Woolf's fantastic fiction Orlando attracts many feminist critics. This diesis tries to make an interpretation of Orlando on the theory of feminist critics. Virginia speculates that patriarchy is basically a fiction under suspicion and revision, in which the female is created inferior to the male. And androgyny is an ideal fusion of the duality. It will erase a series of dual poles in opposition between male and female.The androgynous theory has influenced many feminist critics. But at the same time critics of all casts take it seriously. Elaine Showalter in her work A Literature of Their Own, in which she contends that Woolf's vision of androgyny, is a Utopian state and recognition of their false identifying metaphysical nature. Far from fleeing such gender identities because she fears them, Woolf rejects them because she has seen them for what they are. But Woolf's ideal fusion of the duality between male and female calls for a new understanding and valorization of specifically female values and frames a contrast as a distinction between a feminism of equality and one of difference.The thesis consists of five parts. A brief introduction first offers the present research on Woolf and her feminist thought and makes clear the respective emphasis of the ensuing parts.Chapter one focuses on Woolf's feminist thoughts, especially Woolf's androgynous vision. In Woolf's opinion, there exist two genders in human cerebrum—male and female. Each of us has two powers, one male, and one female;and in the man's brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman's brain the woman predominates over the man. Woolf emphasizes the two genders should be in harmony. So androgyny can be considered as a way and a key to solve the problems of women* of the gender relationship.In Chapter two I take her novel Orlando for a case study, analyzing the androgyny vision through a narration of Orlando's crossing the border of the gender, After the vacillation of gender and conflict and integrity of gender, Orlando combines characteristics of men and women. Orlando is Woolf s androgynous personality ideal. The character has made a comprehensive deconstruction of patriarchy authorities and ideology.Chapter three discusses the significance of Woolf s androgynous theory in terms of androgyny and women's writing. Her creative view that "androgyny'' is the best state for literary creation as well as a good way to dissolve differences between male and female provoked intense responses and longtime discussions among the literary world.The last part is the conclusion of this thesis. Orlando, one of the richest and most imaginative literary works ever produced in female literature, with its allegorical poetics and audacious imagination, comprehensively embodies and envisions the Virginia's feminist theory—the androgyny. The end of the conclusion looks back at Orlando's fantastic sex changing to its prominence, and offers some reflections on what further study this process of discussion may project.In this thesis, on numerous studies of forerunners, I try to present a systematical discussion on Virginia Woolf s androgynous vision and to understand the meanings of the core of her feminist theory.