Reconstructing of Gender Roles in Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Abstract

This research paper presents an exploration of the representation of gender role in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and how she reconstructs the essence of gender and transgender as the major way of identification; instead, the act of creation, what individuals send out into the world is most important when it comes to identifying and characterizing one’s personality. More specifically, it aims to discuss gender identity and its role when it comes to putting the person within a certain position in his or her society, their importance as to set the stomping ground for people depending on their gender when they’re born, or the gender they decide to identify as, and their impact on society once they change the identity of the individual. Orlando has attracted a wide range of discussion amongst the feminist critics because of its use of gender representation. The characters may be female or male but the gender matters in frame work of feminist study. Gender is culturally taken into consideration but in any literary creation role of gender establishes its own identity. Both femininity and masculinity are mentioned in this work and one cannot discuss Woolf without mentioning feminism, a theme that is prominent in almost all of her books and articles, fighting for women and equal rights. Virginia Woolf is one of the most ever discussed writers in context of feminist critical theories.