Part One Evaluative Bibliography - Assignment Example

Part One Evaluative Bibliography Both resources were discovered through a search conducted on Google Books. Gruber, Ruth. Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create As a Woman. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Print. Ruth Gruber has written an insightful discussion about Virginia Woolf, both from the perspective of her writing and of her as a woman in the early twentieth century. Gruber interviews Woolf and provides commentary on the ways in which Woolf presents herself, in contrast to the way in which she has created her work, her demure, self-deprecating discussion of her own intellect revealed in such a manner as to deny the proclamations of her writing, not because she does not realize her own intellect, but because she seems to polite to actually discuss it. Gruber discusses Woolf as a woman of elegance, her voice within her novels having the same casual elevation that her demeanor seems to have. Woolf states to Gruber “And you want to interview me for your book. I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t understand politics. I never worked a day in my life” (2). This statement is the crux of the investigation done about the novel Orlando: A Biography, that this ingenious writer who exhibits such a depth of understanding in regard to the political nature of gender roles and the way in which the social politics of culture affect the lives of those who are subject to those politics, that it is with a great passion that further information was explored. Gruber agrees and states that “I wondered how she considered that it was not work to write groundbreaking novels, brilliant essays, and book reviews, and why she would demean her knowledge of politics. Her books were full of politics; her friends in the Bloomsbury crowd were energetic political thinkers” (2). The exploration of gender is a core theme within the novel as Woolf writes an almost autobiographical account through the symbolic magical occurances that surround the life of a man who becomes a woman and refuses to age or grow old and die. Gruber states that “the early period of his masculinity would be analogous to that stage in Virginia Woolf and in almost every girl, when she longs to be a boy”(148). What Woolf is searching for, and seems to find, is a way to write about the experience of coming into one’s feminine self, of finding the woman within and understanding the responsibility that is involved in being a woman within her time period. Gruber goes on to say that “it is the female Orlando who can feel with intensity the impulse for physical and spiritual completion”(148). Woolf discovers herself and finds a way to best express that discovery through Orlando. It is within the framework of having met and come to interview Woolf that Gruber is able to find a more in depth understanding of the work that she wrote. Her discussions with Woolf lead her to find the Woolf within the character of Orlando, to unveil some of the mystery of the woman while revealing the androgynous hero/heroine of the novel. As Woolf is the true subject of the work, it is clear that the way in which she is revealed is draped in symbolism, the nature of her life thick with the influences of the culture in which she has lived, thus providing a framework in which to discuss the political aspects that bleed from the pores of the work. Cucullu, Lois. Expert Modernists, Matricide, and Modern Culture: Woolf, Forster, Joyce. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Print. Cucullu discusses the modern culture and the impact that writers have had upon the culture and the way in which they have been impacted by the effects of the changes and growth of modern culture. The nature of the work Orlando is discussed for the way in which androgyny comes to define a certain definition of love and desire. As Orlando has transformed from a man to a woman, his lust is no longer defined purely by the designation of gender. Thus, Cucullu states that “desire, and not gender or sex, is naturalized in the figure of Orlando” (49). Therefore, desire becomes the focus, rather than a response to the sexual gender of an individual. This concept is the beginning of the discussion that Woolf makes about her attraction and relationship with Vita Sackville-West, the subject of her desire and the target for whom this ’love letter’ of a novel is written. This becomes further explored through the politicizing of gender roles as Orlando must accommodate certain aspects of culture in order to secure her position and estates. She marries and has a child specifically to have an heir so that she will not be left without the wealth she has carried forward from her male existence. . Cucullu states that “What changes when Orlando marries and bears a child, is explained variously as ‘fashion’ or the ’spirit of the age’. Skirts and wedding bands are as much the mere transient protocols of different periods as swords and breeches or epics and lyrics” (49). The fashion of politics expressly influences the choices of those subject to the consequences of the political environment. Cuculla states “The law, too, is represented as ‘fashion’ in that it responds to change, as a result, even changes its subject” (50). The power of the law is somewhat diminished by the passing of time, the revelation becoming clear that the way in which life is framed is fleeting and that each period of time will have its own framework, the justice or unfairness that is involved fading as the next era takes place. Cuculla discusses the importance of how sexual identity is rendered within the novel. She states that “Sexual fluidity or intermixture is the natural, perpetual, and desirable condition.” (49). The world that Woolf creates allows for the full expression of the interwoven gender identity that exists within everyone. Cuculla points out that Woolf has used this novel to discuss and reveal the nature of her duality, that both genders have influenced the result of her personal gender. The political ramification of being female, the oppression, the responsibility, and the higher level of care that must be taken in trying to find the core of what it means to be female, is explored as it is in contrast to the earlier experiences as a male figure. By creating a gender change within the character, the deeper meanings of being female can be explored through the cultural influences that affect the female life. Part Two An Analysis of Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf Literary texts can be read as politically meaningful irrespective of their authors’ intentions Introduction Virginia Woolf was a writer who was very much of her time, her words reflecting the changes of the period, the new emergent themes of the early twentieth century. However, the novel Orlando was not written with that purpose. The novel was not written to be a reflection of her generation and cultural experiences, but was written to reflect her personal experiences, a love letter to someone with whom she shared an unconventional, yet poignant affair. While the emerging themes of androgyny, sensuality and desire, and the birth of the full feminine spirit are all personalized within the work, politically inspired commentary can also be found within the pages. The political themes within the novel, whether intended or not, are both obvious and distinct, the voice of a woman within the embrace of the birth of freedoms to her sex expounding the many layers of the meaning of gender. Who Woolf was becoming, her daily maturation and growth into the full experience of her gender, is laced with feminism, with the discussion of the balance of gender against the public sphere, and with the cultural climate of her time. The approach that is made to the political side of life is gentle, but suggestive of the way in which politics is infused within both the public and private spheres of life, shaping and molding them into the culture in which they exist. Virginia Woolf Author Ruth Gruber wrote a paper in college about Virginia Woolf, then interviewed her for a book that was an expansion upon that paper. During the interview, Woolf was described as a woman as being in her mid fifties, a woman of beautiful grace whose husband appeared to be devoted. Woolf responded to the interview by first saying to Gruber, who was writing a book on women under fascism, communism, and democracy, “And you want to interview me for your book. I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t understand politics. I never worked a day in my life” (2). As a response, the following observation was made by Gruber: “I wondered how she considered that it was not work to write groundbreaking novels, brilliant essays, and book reviews, and why she would demean her knowledge of politics. Her books were full of politics; her friends in the Bloomsbury crowd were energetic political thinkers” (2). The Bloomsbury group was a collection of friends who were the center of a literary culture which included Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Rupert Brooke, Leonard Woolf, Duncan Grant, Saxon Sydney-Turner, and Roger Fry. Beyond the intellectualism and the philosophical turns that the group created during their discussions, the philosophies of the group on sex were quite liberal, opening up the door for exploration. Clive Bell introduced Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West who would eventually begin a love affair. Nigel Nicolson, the son of Sackville-West, quoted his mother as saying shortly after having met Woolf “I simply adore Virginia Woolf, and so would you. You would fall quite flat before her charm and personality…At first you think she is plain, then a sort of spiritual beauty imposes itself” (201). The novel Orlando reflects a unique time-period in Virginia Woolf’s life. The love affair between herself and Sackville-West is reflected within the pages of the novel, her feelings for Sackville-West permeating the writing with thick passion, without tasteless sentiment. Nicolson writes of the novel “The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace, and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her, and ends by photographing her in the mud at Long Barn, with dogs, awaiting Virginia’s arrival next day” (203). The work in Orlando is a complexity of human experience, the reflected politics and sexuality rich with the tenets of the modern period. Feminism is interwoven throughout the piece, the context of which is rife with the melodious climate of change that was being experienced through the newfound freedoms that England was giving to women. Women broke free of the constraints of the society, the burgeoning political equality as much as a release from oppression as was the release from the corset. No longer held within the constraints of male domination, the female in England was beginning to find a voice, and Woolf used hers to express a political point of view laced with the delicacy of sensuality in order to frame her novel, Orlando. Orlando: A Biography The novel Orlando: A Biography, written by Virginia Woolf, is a fictional biography, but can be interpreted as a symbolic autobiography. The transformation of Orlando from a male to a female can be interpreted for its symbolism of the transformation of a woman into the feminized version of herself, the maturation of the female within when she becomes aware of what it mean to fully experience her gender. Gruber states that “the early period of his masculinity would be analogous to that stage in Virginia Woolf and in almost every girl, when she longs to be a boy”(148). The life that Orlando lives as a man has importance, but it is not until she finds her female self that her life begins to fully erupt, her emotional life, the responsibilities of her gender, and her experience boiling to the surface and developing into the fullness of the experience of being a woman. Gruber goes on to say that “it is the female Orlando who can feel with intensity the impulse for physical and spiritual completion”(148). In finding her femininity, Woolf finds her true self, her fulfillment within her role and gender. The blurring of the gender lines reflected more than just the burgeoning understanding of the female position within society. According to Cucullu, the androgeny within the work reflected a larger understanding of the nature of Woolf’s life, her spheres of public life and private life intermingling as she worked within her home, held her domesticity within its walls, and was the host of both (47). The time period was just past the Victorian era, the spheres of influence having just become less defined by the masculinity of the public sphere and the femininity of the domestic sphere. Woolf found herself within a world where her gender was being manipulated by the greater cultural understanding of the term, with her own philosophies and experiences nudging the cultural beliefs off center. The popularity of Orlando created a great fame for Woolf, the orders for copies of the book and the number of requests for her to speak too numerous to fulfill on either front (Cucullu 48). The effect of the androgynous love that is expressed throughout the novel having a more universal appeal than was expected. When endorsed by Sackville-West, and eventually revealed to have her as the core of the novel, its popularity rose making Woolf a sensation in society. The core of understanding the revelation of Orlando is summed up by Cucullu, as she states “desire, and not gender or sex, is naturalized in the figure of Orlando” (49). The message is clear that it is within the person, not the gender, that Woolf has placed her sexual desire. Woolf states that “In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male and female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what is above” (139). The politicization of sexuality can be appreciated within the novel. The climate of feminine emancipation of the early twentieth century becomes manifested in the adrogeny of the lead character. Cucullu states that “What changes when Orlando marries and bears a child, is explained variously as ‘fashion’ or the ’spirit of the age’. Skirts and wedding bands are as much the mere transient protocols of different periods as swords and breeches or epics and lyrics” (49). The thematic resonances are entrenched in both the public political climate as the private, domestic sphere, the story created through the reflections of both spheres, intermingling much in the same way that Woolf’s life is an intermingling of culture, politics and the private life. Feminism in Twentieth Century England The year that Orlando was published, 1928, was the same year that Emmeline Pankhurst died. Pankhurst was a staunch leader of the suffragette movement in England, calling for the right for women to vote, and leading rallies and protests that were conducted with vigorous intent. During the previous decades, women had gone through the brutality of police who would break up their protests, the barbaric methods of force feeding in prisons after their incarceration resulting from the Black Friday protest march which often resulting in rupturing in the eyes, and the politically rife complications of multiple organizations supporting women’s rights as they divided and gathered, each having agendas and methods of creating a sense of equality for women within the political sphere (Smith 7). The year 1928 was the year that women over the age of 21 were given the right to vote, where ten years earlier women over the age of 30 had gained that right. The emancipation from the ‘protection’ of men, allowing for the rights to own property and to engage in business affairs was merely fifty years old, the laws slowly changing during this period to reflect female autonomy and position within society. The cultural philosophy of the ideology of separate spheres, the male sphere being public and the female sphere being domestic, was only just beginning to enjoy the cultural changes that the changes in law had provided. The complexity of the private, public, cultural, and business roles of men and women allowed for the concept of androgyny to play a central symbolic role in the reflection of early twentieth century Britain. While the discussion in Orlando is a personal reflection on the way in which Woolf was experience her gender, the greater point of view can be seen to be reflective of the confusion and growing pains that the culture was experiencing during this time. Woolf’s own struggles were not dissimilar to those of women in Britain, the changes in everything from dress, to the expectations of autonomous survival creating unexpected consequences. If one looks at nothing more than the changes in fashion between 1900 and 1928, the revelation of the leg was a profound change, the female form no longer clothed from wrist to heel. The corset was off, the body was free to breath, and the flash of an ankle was no longer the sexual taboo that it had been previously. The number of changes in the presentation of the sexes, in the way in which they responded to one another, is reflected in the many ways in which Orlando experiences the evolution of his/her gender. The specifics of law becomes a central issue within the evolution of male to female, his own estates now not available to her through the fashion of law. According to Cuculla “The law, too, is represented as ‘fashion’ in that it responds to change, as a result, even changes its subject” (50). Some of the aspects of change that are experienced by Orlando can be equated to the political changes that occurred within the law. As Orlando evolves, so does the public sphere, first the purview of the male, but slowly the blossoming sphere of both the sexes. When Orlando is male, he is only male, but just like within the DNA of the human animal, when female, Orlando is both male and female as he has lived as both by this time. In this same vein, the public sphere was once just male, and had evolved into being both male and female, something that Orlando embodies. Conclusion According to Cuculla, “Sexual fluidity or intermixture is the natural, perpetual, and desirable condition.” (49). However, the state of Orlando’s life is not interested in the lower levels of needs, the need for survival, for security, and for basic essential needs have been provided for through his and her natural state of existence as an aristocratic presence, a person of some importance throughout most of her existence. However, when attaining the status of a writer, she becomes firmly a part of the bourgeoisie, a member of the consumer culture, content to experience life from that point of view having attained the accolades of her poetic product. Cuculla states that “the social and material spaces represented in the novel through which Orlando strides and motors are as labile as are the sexual proclivities of the eponymous lord or lady - with the result that aristocratic privilege is dowered to the cultural bourgeoisie in the form of one rather persevering female writer” (50). As Orlando begins his life as a part of the court, part of the aristocratic design of society and a member of the privileged, the demands and exploration that are required to make his journey become a part of that privilege. As the novel comes to an end, he has reached the contemporary period, no longer needing the artifice of nobility, but embracing the new artifice, the consumerism from which she can now define her state of being. That Woolf claimed to know nothing of politics suggests that her political commentary was unintentional, but that is most likely not the case. Woolf was an intellectual, her relationships and activities in life reveal that she participated heavily in the political discussion of her time period. The work that she created through her writing within Orlando is highly subject to the cultural positioning of her gender and her peers within the framework of the political climate. This novel was intended to be of a personal nature, the rhetoric within a discussion of her own experience within her gender, but the story is developed through the perspective of cultural and political commentary, whether that was a purposeful collateral result or an accidental result. However, it is hard to believe that it was purely collateral result as she was an thoughtful author who crafted her words carefully. She was actively involved with a group a friends who were highly influential upon the culture. As well, her words were laced with references that directly confront some of the issues of the early twentieth century. Therefore, while it would seem that political commentary was not her intention, it is undoubtedly a thoughtful part of the work that Woolf created in this novel. Therefore, while she makes a claim that directly controverts the concept that her writing had anything to do with politics, the content, when put into social context, counteracts her claim. The intriguing depth to which she discusses gender suggests that the advances that women had made during her lifetime had greatly affected the way in which she reviewed the gender roles through the androgyny perspective that her main character experiences. The story, while considered a love letter to the woman that she desired and developed a relationship with during her time in the social circle of the Bloomsbury group, the writing reflects the totality of the culture from which she gained her insights. Political commentary is part of social commentary, made from the perspective of the writer through the lens of the time and place that frames the work that they write. Even a period piece will have aspects of contemporary politics as the subject matter will flow from the experience of the writer as he or she tells parts of her own story within the context of the framed story that he or she is telling. While Orlando most likely is the result of carefully planned theoretical discussion on the concept of gender, it is immaterial to whether or not it actually has that form of commentary. It exists because Woolf lived in the time that she did and was influenced by the events of her life. Works Cited Cucullu, Lois. Expert Modernists, Matricide, and Modern Culture: Woolf, Forster, Joyce. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Print. Gruber, Ruth. Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create As a Woman. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Print. Nicolson, Nigel, and V Sackville-West. Portrait of a Marriage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Print. Smith, Harold L. British Feminism in the Twentieth Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. Print. Woolf, Virginia, Mark Hussey, and Maria Battista. Orlando: A Biography. London: Harcourt Inc, 1993. Print. Read More