A Freudian Psychoanalytical Study Of The Protagonist Of Orlando:A Biography

Orlando:A Biography is a novel written by Virginia Woolf(1882-1941),the famous English modernist writer,in 1928.It is conceived by Woolf as a new form of biography,which has attracted a lot of scholarly researches in virtue of its rich reflections and profound spiritual inspirations.This thesis aims to make an analysis of the transformation and development of Orlando's personality and explain the transformation mechanism and the ultimate motivation behind the transformations from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis,trying to offer a new viewpoint on the understanding of the novel.By overviewing Orlando's life during the four hundred years' period,it is easy to find out that Orlando's personality has undergone a process from immaturity to maturity.At the early period of the novel,Orlando's personality is dominated by his id.He is willful and impulsive without any consideration of the social order and morality,which results in his failure both in love and career.After a series of development,Orlando's personality has gradually reached a mature state in which her ego can well balance the relationship between id and super-ego.As a result,with her mature personality,Orlando's behaviors become socially accepted and are in conformity with the conventional rules.At the end of the novel,the female Orlando finally manages to make her dreams come true by publishing her poem and getting an award.She also successfully gets married to a man and gives birth to a baby in conformity with the spirt of the age.Different mechanisms work in Orlando to develop his personality,mainly in the form of repression,displacement,sublimation,and goal identification.Through those mechanisms,Orlando's personality gradually becomes mature and developed,which helps to release his primitive desires in socially accepted ways.According to the theory of Freud,instincts are the sources of energy of all human behaviors and thus the ultimate motivations of the development of Orlando's personality.The fusion of life instinct and death instinct can explain why Orlando has slept for seven whole days for twice.Through the first sleep,Orlando gets spiritually reborn while after the second sleep,Orlando gets bodily reborn and transforms into a woman.The Freudian psychoanalytical interpretation of Orlando provides the readers with a new perspective to understand the novel and helps the readers know the importance of a mature personality.What's more,by the application of psychoanalysis,this thesis tries to evoke people's attention on the inner spiritual world and to let people know better about oneself and live a happy life.