A Freudian Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of Orlando

As one of the forerunners of feminism, Virginia Woolf is undoubtedly an outstanding figure in English literature. Her works have long been regarded as representatives of the Stream of Consciousness. However, with the rising of Western feminism, critics'studies of her works have begun a new page. This thesis will interpret her fanciful novel Orlando from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective, with an attempt to explore its profound meaning as well as the real self of the writer.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 defies the laws of time, since he is first found in the days of Elizabeth I, and ends in the 1920s, Woolf's present. He begins as a man, changes sex in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and continues as a woman. He loves people from both sexes, and cross-dresses, too. Ambiguities and multiplicity delightfully infect the text itself, astride many genres as it is astride gender: we read it largely as fiction, but it calls itself'biography', is a suggestive potted history of three centuries of English upper-class life, a lesbian romance, and was described by Woolf as a'love letter'to Vita Sackville-West, her lover at the time of writing.This thesis attempts to interpret Orlando from the Freudian Psychoanalytic perspective, focusing on the formal 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.The thesis starts with the complicated relationship between Woolf and Freudian psychoanalysis and then analyzes the novel in terms of Freudian theories, such as consciousness and unconsciousness, personality structure, death instinct and gender symbolism. First, Woolf's 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. The figure is a product of compromise between Woolf's consciousness and unconsciousness. Second, 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. The paper depicts the personality structure of Orlando, that is: the male Orlando, as a person with wild, untamed desires, is a representative of Freud's id. Androgynous Orlando, as a person constrained by social and moral conventions, is a representative of the Freudian superego, that is, with conscience, the morally inhibiting agent of the psyche. As a mediator between these opposing forces, female Orlando represents the poor ego, which tries to keep a healthy balance but is shattered because it is unable to do so. Freud holds that a work of literature is the external expression of the author's unconscious mind. Therefore, analysts could treat the literary work as dreams, applying psychoanalytic techniques to the text to discover the author's hidden motivations and textual connotations.The thesis continues by exploring two more Freudian elements, death instinct and gender symbolism. From time to time, Orlando is obsessed with melancholy and death. For Freud, literature is a symbol of writer's anxiety and bitterness and wish due to the constrained instinct. Transvestism in the novel fully conveys the characters'ambiguous gender. Finally, a conclusion is drawn that the writing about multiple desires removed a repression for Woolf and stabilized her. Orlando, a person with multiple selves, is the symbol of the real self that Woolf has been seeking through her verbal art.