Meese, Elizabeth. "When Virginia Looked at Vita, What Did She See; Or, Lesbian: Feminist: Woman-What's the Differ(e/a)nce?." Feminist Studies 18.1 (1992): 99-117.
This article focuses on Virginia and Vita’s affair and how it was the Catalyst and shaper of the novel Orlando. Some of her sources are letters back and forth between Virginia and Vita. She refers to the novel as one long love letter. This article, like the last one relates sexual identity closely with clothing choice. She theorizes that Orlando’s duel genders might have been a way for Woolf to write about lesbians in a less radical fashion. I think the background about the affair is important because most every critique of the novel references it. If much of the gender-play is based on how androgynous Vita was, that makes it central to my argument. Also the issue of signifiers and signifier confusion is important to this article. The article suggest this with the differ(e/a)nce business.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Critical Article Summary
Burns, Christy L. "Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's Orlando." Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 40.3 (1994): 342-364.
Again this article describes the novel as an exploration of sexuality and its role in society. She also believes is written as a biography of Vita, Virginia Woolf's lover. Burn’s describes how Woolf plays with the concept of truth, especially concerning gender and the ability of costume to mask or distort gender. This article is pragmatic in how it describes the novel as a mirror to the reader. She writes that the oak tree is symbolism for the way Orlando’s body changes forms while he/she stays essentially the same. The Victorian era is when gender difference becomes the most obvious and oppressive. It is then that Orlando feels duty to marry as her role as a woman. She writes finally that the goal of the novel was to take biography and gender roles shake them up and spit them out, Burns believes she succeeded. I think I will use this article a lot as I find her explanation of the way Woolf plays with gender fascinating, as well as fairly easy to understand.
Again this article describes the novel as an exploration of sexuality and its role in society. She also believes is written as a biography of Vita, Virginia Woolf's lover. Burn’s describes how Woolf plays with the concept of truth, especially concerning gender and the ability of costume to mask or distort gender. This article is pragmatic in how it describes the novel as a mirror to the reader. She writes that the oak tree is symbolism for the way Orlando’s body changes forms while he/she stays essentially the same. The Victorian era is when gender difference becomes the most obvious and oppressive. It is then that Orlando feels duty to marry as her role as a woman. She writes finally that the goal of the novel was to take biography and gender roles shake them up and spit them out, Burns believes she succeeded. I think I will use this article a lot as I find her explanation of the way Woolf plays with gender fascinating, as well as fairly easy to understand.
Okin, Susan Moller. "Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Families: Dichotomizing Differences." Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 11.1 (1996): 30-48.
This article represents a mimetic perspective. It discusses the way literature mirrors reality. According to this article, Woolf took the literary tradition of dichotomizing gender difference and turned it on its head. The author envisions a gender- free society where people are free to act as they please and wear what they please with no negative societal implications. He see’s this as very positive because dichotomy can often lead to inferiority for woman and pain for those that don’t fit neatly into gender roles. He sees Orlando as a spoof on this human tendency. Humans love to divide everything into categories. She too thought the plot was related to Vita, but not as completely as the first two articles I summarized. Clearly Orlando finds being a woman more difficult to be a woman because she cross dresses. It becomes clear that most gender difference is arbitrary. He thinks Woolf makes this clear because many times, she describes Orlando’s clothing as gender- neutral. He also writes about how strange and radical Woolf was at the time that she was published.
This article represents a mimetic perspective. It discusses the way literature mirrors reality. According to this article, Woolf took the literary tradition of dichotomizing gender difference and turned it on its head. The author envisions a gender- free society where people are free to act as they please and wear what they please with no negative societal implications. He see’s this as very positive because dichotomy can often lead to inferiority for woman and pain for those that don’t fit neatly into gender roles. He sees Orlando as a spoof on this human tendency. Humans love to divide everything into categories. She too thought the plot was related to Vita, but not as completely as the first two articles I summarized. Clearly Orlando finds being a woman more difficult to be a woman because she cross dresses. It becomes clear that most gender difference is arbitrary. He thinks Woolf makes this clear because many times, she describes Orlando’s clothing as gender- neutral. He also writes about how strange and radical Woolf was at the time that she was published.
Critical Article Summary
Hovey, Jaime. "'Kissing a Negress in the Dark': Englishness as a Masquerade in Woolf's Orlando." PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 112.3 (1997): 393-404
Jaime Hovey discusses Orlando’s gender ambivalences and their relationship to Nationalism. In this article the author writes that Orlando is roughly based on the life of Vita, Virginia’s lover. The author also writes that racial purity, as an Anglo-Saxon, is a large part of Orlando’s identity, but this signifier fades as Orlando becomes a woman. This is because although the same “racial purity” still exists it is no longer identified with the same power. She also believes that the novel is a study of white, female homosexuality. The author believes the controversy in sexuality in the novel is grounded by Orlando’s race and class standing. She also believes the tension is alleviated by the story’s many ambiguities. I think, to simplify what she is talking about is that the nitty gritty details are left out of her/his magical sex-change. Orlando goes to bed a beautiful rich man, and wakes up a beautiful woman. This removes any explicit sexuality from the text so the reader can focus on the differences between Orlando’s experience as a man and woman. Although I really enjoyed this article and found it very insightful I'm not sure it'll be much help to me as I do my project. This is simply because it focuses more on English-ness and race then gender. I might cite some small parts that talk about gender as a side issue.
Jaime Hovey discusses Orlando’s gender ambivalences and their relationship to Nationalism. In this article the author writes that Orlando is roughly based on the life of Vita, Virginia’s lover. The author also writes that racial purity, as an Anglo-Saxon, is a large part of Orlando’s identity, but this signifier fades as Orlando becomes a woman. This is because although the same “racial purity” still exists it is no longer identified with the same power. She also believes that the novel is a study of white, female homosexuality. The author believes the controversy in sexuality in the novel is grounded by Orlando’s race and class standing. She also believes the tension is alleviated by the story’s many ambiguities. I think, to simplify what she is talking about is that the nitty gritty details are left out of her/his magical sex-change. Orlando goes to bed a beautiful rich man, and wakes up a beautiful woman. This removes any explicit sexuality from the text so the reader can focus on the differences between Orlando’s experience as a man and woman. Although I really enjoyed this article and found it very insightful I'm not sure it'll be much help to me as I do my project. This is simply because it focuses more on English-ness and race then gender. I might cite some small parts that talk about gender as a side issue.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Three Guineas
It is easy to draw connections between this book and A Room of One's Own. They both focus on education for women. They also both focus on economics and the importance of money if a person is to have any power. But this novel brings in the added angle of how women having a say could prevent war. Woolf puts all these arguments together so compellingly. I love the structure of the book and how she is deciding how to donate her money, since indirect actions like this, signing a check or writing letters were the only ways a woman could exert her will. While she does go on to repeat the argument I would like to do a closer reading of the first time she puts it all together on pages 16-20.
First she makes the connection between war and the economy and a woman's role (or lack there of) in both. "At any rate that method is not open to us; both the Army and Navy are closed to our sex. We are not allowed to fight. Not again are we allowed to be members of the Stock Exchange. Thus we can use neither the pressure of force or the pressure of money" (16) The issue seems to be influence, the ability to cause events to happen the way one wants them to, or to change things. Here she directs her arguement toward men as a whole. Woolf also points out that women don't have the ability to strike effectively, since a halt in thier labor would do little to the professions. They can not say they simply won't manufacture supplies for the war, because the effect would be negligible.
It is the previously help opinion that the way a woman can exert her force the most powerfully is indirect, through a man. The passage she chooses by Sir Ernest Wild is a riot. The woman is actually immensley powerful, she expresses this power by getting her husband to do whatever she wants, while at the same time, not allowing him to know that she is doing it. She restates the idea from a Room of One's Own that the most important thing a woman has gained is the ability to participate in a profession. When she is making her own money, rather than relying on the genorosity of her father or husband, she has an opportunity to be truly independant. She doesn't feel the need to charm men to earn a living, so she is free to express her opinions. It is only once she has the right to communicate her feelings that she may have any chance to prevent wars.
There are a few other parts of the book so far that I have found really interesting. I love the way she discusses the hypocrisy have how England is supposed to be about freedom and about liberty. She then questions whether a woman in England had this same experience. I also enjoy the parelels drawn between patriarchal constructions and facisim. I also found the discussion about the different purposes of clothing for men and women very funny. A woman's clothes hide her nakedness, draw attention to her beauty, and might even help her get a husband. But a man uses his clothes to advertise his achievements. He has buttons, ribbons, badges, each with a seperate meaning. "A woman who advertized her motherhood by a tuft of horse hair on her shoulder, would scarcely, you will agree, be a venerable object." (26) Tee-hee
First she makes the connection between war and the economy and a woman's role (or lack there of) in both. "At any rate that method is not open to us; both the Army and Navy are closed to our sex. We are not allowed to fight. Not again are we allowed to be members of the Stock Exchange. Thus we can use neither the pressure of force or the pressure of money" (16) The issue seems to be influence, the ability to cause events to happen the way one wants them to, or to change things. Here she directs her arguement toward men as a whole. Woolf also points out that women don't have the ability to strike effectively, since a halt in thier labor would do little to the professions. They can not say they simply won't manufacture supplies for the war, because the effect would be negligible.
It is the previously help opinion that the way a woman can exert her force the most powerfully is indirect, through a man. The passage she chooses by Sir Ernest Wild is a riot. The woman is actually immensley powerful, she expresses this power by getting her husband to do whatever she wants, while at the same time, not allowing him to know that she is doing it. She restates the idea from a Room of One's Own that the most important thing a woman has gained is the ability to participate in a profession. When she is making her own money, rather than relying on the genorosity of her father or husband, she has an opportunity to be truly independant. She doesn't feel the need to charm men to earn a living, so she is free to express her opinions. It is only once she has the right to communicate her feelings that she may have any chance to prevent wars.
There are a few other parts of the book so far that I have found really interesting. I love the way she discusses the hypocrisy have how England is supposed to be about freedom and about liberty. She then questions whether a woman in England had this same experience. I also enjoy the parelels drawn between patriarchal constructions and facisim. I also found the discussion about the different purposes of clothing for men and women very funny. A woman's clothes hide her nakedness, draw attention to her beauty, and might even help her get a husband. But a man uses his clothes to advertise his achievements. He has buttons, ribbons, badges, each with a seperate meaning. "A woman who advertized her motherhood by a tuft of horse hair on her shoulder, would scarcely, you will agree, be a venerable object." (26) Tee-hee
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Why have women always been so poor?
These chapters seem to be focusing mainly on the differences between the treatment of men and women in academia. When Beadle kicks her off the grass I think that is meant to be a sort of literal representation of the intellectual chasm between the two genders. Right before this occurred she was having an idea, and the incident made her lose it. So by enforcing the rule about the grass, the officer was crushing her creativity. Also she is not even allowed into the library, further emphasizing her exclusion from this world.
I think to further delineate the differences between the way the two sexes are treated, chapter one describes a meal at Oxbridge, the college for men and Fernham, the woman's college. The men have an abundance of food, pastries, and wine, while the meal at Fernham which is a shadow of that. This is symbolism to the way the poverty addled system of educating women compares to that of males, which have always been generously bankrolled. The author wonders if this might have all been different if somewhere a few generations ago women would have learned how to make money. This doesn't seem entirely fair, since women were not really allowed to have jobs, or their own livelihoods. The author acknowledges this and decides women were more likely to be treated as property than own it. This novel/ essay seems to be echoing some of the points in Orlando about the differences between the experiences of men and women. There is a culture that relies on their exclusion.
Something pattern I've noticed in the text so far is ambiguity especially when it comes to the subject of truth. The narrator says on the very first pa.ge with a subject as controversial and large as this there is no easy way to come to a real conclusion. So the novel is just intending to expand on problem. Also, when the narrator introduces herself, she is ambiguous about what name she should be called. This also serves to make her sort of an "everywoman" that many can relate to. Also the book is focused on fiction, a genre with an ambiguous relationship to the truth, instead of any other literary genre. In fact I think the genre of literature is similar to the way Woolf describes her story in the first few pages, lies mixed with truth Another theme that seems almost too obvious to mention is money. More specifically, the importance of having money if one is going to be independent.
I love the part when she's looking at literature about women, and it's always written by angry men. There's something a little funny about this I think. Now, if you looked for literature about men, you certainly wouldn't find nothing, you would find a lot of books written by angry women. :) This emotion in the man's writing, she finds very distasteful and that's why her point of view in her own book is removed. We find out that this book comes after woman's suffrage. So it is set in a time where there are tons and tons of changes happening, but they are just in the infant stages. The way the author supports herself is with an inheritance from an aunt. A few years before, she would not have been allowed to inherit.
I think to further delineate the differences between the way the two sexes are treated, chapter one describes a meal at Oxbridge, the college for men and Fernham, the woman's college. The men have an abundance of food, pastries, and wine, while the meal at Fernham which is a shadow of that. This is symbolism to the way the poverty addled system of educating women compares to that of males, which have always been generously bankrolled. The author wonders if this might have all been different if somewhere a few generations ago women would have learned how to make money. This doesn't seem entirely fair, since women were not really allowed to have jobs, or their own livelihoods. The author acknowledges this and decides women were more likely to be treated as property than own it. This novel/ essay seems to be echoing some of the points in Orlando about the differences between the experiences of men and women. There is a culture that relies on their exclusion.
Something pattern I've noticed in the text so far is ambiguity especially when it comes to the subject of truth. The narrator says on the very first pa.ge with a subject as controversial and large as this there is no easy way to come to a real conclusion. So the novel is just intending to expand on problem. Also, when the narrator introduces herself, she is ambiguous about what name she should be called. This also serves to make her sort of an "everywoman" that many can relate to. Also the book is focused on fiction, a genre with an ambiguous relationship to the truth, instead of any other literary genre. In fact I think the genre of literature is similar to the way Woolf describes her story in the first few pages, lies mixed with truth Another theme that seems almost too obvious to mention is money. More specifically, the importance of having money if one is going to be independent.
I love the part when she's looking at literature about women, and it's always written by angry men. There's something a little funny about this I think. Now, if you looked for literature about men, you certainly wouldn't find nothing, you would find a lot of books written by angry women. :) This emotion in the man's writing, she finds very distasteful and that's why her point of view in her own book is removed. We find out that this book comes after woman's suffrage. So it is set in a time where there are tons and tons of changes happening, but they are just in the infant stages. The way the author supports herself is with an inheritance from an aunt. A few years before, she would not have been allowed to inherit.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Mrs. Dollaway
Since I finished the first pages for my altered book I've been noticing the way Mrs. Dollaway inspires me visually. One visual element I definitely want to make use of is Big Ben, for several reasons. The novel has a very tight time line, one day, this time is very important. Also, there seems to be a fear of death motivating the characters, especially Clarissa and the passing of time represents movement towards death. I might try to incorporate the image of "leaden circle dissolving in the air" an expression that occurs several times in the novel. I think this is speaking on the permanence of time passed as well as the fleetingness of the present.
Another image that I want to work with is flowers. First of all flowers are very visually appealing and offer a lot of artistic possibilities. Flowers are an important symbol in the book. They are symbols for many different emotions and ideas. They represent Clarissa's independence because she chooses to go out and get them for herself. I think they also represent the life she has chosen, because Richard gives her roses, as opposed to the life she would have had with Peter.
I might dedicate another page to the old women who lives in the house across from Clarissa. The old woman represents loneliness in the novel, specifically the lonliness that comes from growing old. Conversely Clarissa see's some beauty in the privacy and lack of communication in the woman's life. She is free of anyone who might oppress her. Clarissa see's herself and a possible future of isolation in the old woman.
I think the idea of loneliness is also rendered visibly to the ocean. Characters seem to be often feeling as though they are drowning, or that there are lost at sea. I might make my ocean page from Jacob's Room a spread. This makes sense the element because of water stands for a similar kind of melancholy in that novel. The ocean also seems to be connected to Septimus and his suicide. Clarissa seems to veiw his death as a positive act, she's glad he did it.
Another thing I was thinking about, although I'm not sure how I would portray it's visual is Septimus's depression as a reflections of Woolf's mental ailment. I also wonder if his suicide in the book is a grim foreshadowing of her own suicide. I feel that it at least is indicative of her feeling toward suicide as being a possible escape, rather than tragedy. It is especially an escape if one is as mentally tormented as Woolf or Septimus. The way that Clarissa reacts to his death, and see's herself reflected in it, may be a stand in for Virginia herself. "She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away"(115)
Another important theme in the book is love that cannot be acted upon. Of course there is Peter and Clarissa. Since she rejected him, they both still think about on another. Part of Clarissa's depressive thoughts are related to wondering what her life with Peter would have been like. Then there is Clarissa's romantic relationship with Sally. They had one kiss which was the peak in Clarissa's life. They can never be together because of the restraints of traditional society.
Another image that I want to work with is flowers. First of all flowers are very visually appealing and offer a lot of artistic possibilities. Flowers are an important symbol in the book. They are symbols for many different emotions and ideas. They represent Clarissa's independence because she chooses to go out and get them for herself. I think they also represent the life she has chosen, because Richard gives her roses, as opposed to the life she would have had with Peter.
I might dedicate another page to the old women who lives in the house across from Clarissa. The old woman represents loneliness in the novel, specifically the lonliness that comes from growing old. Conversely Clarissa see's some beauty in the privacy and lack of communication in the woman's life. She is free of anyone who might oppress her. Clarissa see's herself and a possible future of isolation in the old woman.
I think the idea of loneliness is also rendered visibly to the ocean. Characters seem to be often feeling as though they are drowning, or that there are lost at sea. I might make my ocean page from Jacob's Room a spread. This makes sense the element because of water stands for a similar kind of melancholy in that novel. The ocean also seems to be connected to Septimus and his suicide. Clarissa seems to veiw his death as a positive act, she's glad he did it.
Another thing I was thinking about, although I'm not sure how I would portray it's visual is Septimus's depression as a reflections of Woolf's mental ailment. I also wonder if his suicide in the book is a grim foreshadowing of her own suicide. I feel that it at least is indicative of her feeling toward suicide as being a possible escape, rather than tragedy. It is especially an escape if one is as mentally tormented as Woolf or Septimus. The way that Clarissa reacts to his death, and see's herself reflected in it, may be a stand in for Virginia herself. "She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away"(115)
Another important theme in the book is love that cannot be acted upon. Of course there is Peter and Clarissa. Since she rejected him, they both still think about on another. Part of Clarissa's depressive thoughts are related to wondering what her life with Peter would have been like. Then there is Clarissa's romantic relationship with Sally. They had one kiss which was the peak in Clarissa's life. They can never be together because of the restraints of traditional society.
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