Reconstructing History For English Women

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography has notably drawn critics for the settingof an androgynous protagonist who lived for four hundred years in English history.Orlando brought a number of researches, among which feminist readings of Orlandowere the most. However, the mix of history and fiction in the novel was not paid muchattention to. In a New-historic perspective, Woolf has reconstructed history for women,and showed her inflections on female heritage in literary history, as well as in theEnglish society.In Chapter One, guided by the historicity of text, the author analyzes therelationship between Woolf and her same-sex lover Vita Sackville-West and theinfluence of Vita’s aristocratic family. Meanwhile, the author tries to find out howOrlando survived in the history under such influence before and after he/she changedhis/her sex, which reflects Woolf’s determination to reconstruct history in the novel. InChapter Two, guided by the textuality of history, the author analyzes how Woolfrewrote a literary history, especially in favour of women, with the changing ofOrlando’s literary involvement. In Chapter Three, the author discusses how Woolfreconstructed the history of English society and how she mixed facts with fiction.Finally, the thesis manages to draw a conclusion that as a novel of mixture of thefact and fiction, Orlando: A Biography reflects Virginia Woolf’s peculiar historicalawareness and insights into women’s cultural heritage in English literature, as well asin English society. By breaking and reconstructing the history, Woolf tries to render herthinking on the position and influence of women in history, which fully reflects herhumanistic concerns for women.