Paper no. 106 assignment

Paper no.106 Twentieth century Literature from:1900 to World War 2

Topic: Symbolism in Orlando

Name:Pandya Mayuri

Roll no.14

Enroll no.4069206420210023

Email id: pandyamayuri0610@gmail.com

Batch:2021 to 2023

Submitted to: S.B.Gardi Department of English MKBU.

 

 

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

 

Virginia Woolf

 BORN: 1882, London, England

DIED: 1941, Lewes, Sussex, England

NATIONALITY: British

GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction

MAJOR WORKS:

Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

To the Lighthouse (1927)

Orlando (1928)

A Room of One's Own (1929)

One of the most prominent literary figures of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf is chiefly renowned as an innovative novelist. She also wrote book reviews, biographical and autobiographical sketches, social and literary criticism, personal essays, and commemorative articles treating a wide range of topics. Concerned primarily with depicting the life of the mind, Woolf revolted against traditional narrative structures and developed her own highly individualized style of writing.

Works In Biographical And Historical Context

Early Life in an Unconventional and Literary Atmosphere Born in London, Virginia Woolf was the third child of Julia and Leslie Stephen. Although her brothers, Thoby and Adrian, were sent to school, Virginia and her sister, Vanessa, were taught at home by their parents and by tutors. Theirs was a highly literary family. Woolf received no formal education, but she was raised in a cultured atmosphere, learning from her father's extensive library and from conversing with his friends, many of whom were prominent writers of the era.

Formation of the Bloomsbury Group Following the death of her father in 1904, Woolf settled in the Bloomsbury district of London with her sister and brothers. Their house became a gathering place where such friends as J. M. Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, and E. M. Forster congregated for lively discussions about philosophy, art, music, and literature. A complex network of friendships and love affairs developed, serving to increase the solidarity of what became known as the Bloomsbury Group. Here she met Leonard Woolf, the author, politician, and economist whom she married in 1912. Woolf flourished in the unconventional atmosphere that she and her siblings had cultivated.

Financial Need Catalyzes Literary Output The need to earn money led her to begin submitting book reviews and essays to various publications. Her first published works—mainly literary reviews—began appearing anonymously in 1904 in the Guardian, a weekly newspaper for Anglo-Catholic clergy. Woolf's letters and diaries reveal that journalism occupied much of her time and thought between 1904 and 1909. By the latter year, however, she was becoming absorbed in work on her first novel, eventually published in 1915 as The Voyage Out.

The Hogarth Press In 1914, World War I began, a devastating conflict that involved carnage on an unprecedented scale. It involved nearly every European country and, eventually, the United States. About twenty million people were killed as a direct result of the war. Nearly a million British soldiers died (similar losses were experienced by all the other warring nations). In 1917, while England was in the midst of fighting World War I, Woolf and her husband cofounded the Hogarth Press. They bought a small handpress, with a booklet of instructions, and set up shop on the dining room table in Hogarth House, their lodgings in Richmond. They planned to print only some of their own writings and that of their talented friends. Leonard hoped the manual work would provide Virginia a relaxing diversion from the stress of writing.

It is a tribute to their combined business acumen and critical judgment that this small independent venture became, as Mary Gaither recounts, “a self-supporting business and a significant publishing voice in England between the wars.” Certainly being her own publisher made it much easier for Virginia Woolf to pursue her experimental bent but also enabled her to gain greater financial independence from what was at that time a male-dominated industry. Like Woolf, many British women joined the professional work force in an increased capacity during World War I, capitalizing on England's need for heavy industry to support its armed forces.

Successful Experiments This philosophy of daring and experimental writing is shown in her self-published works. While the novel Night and Day (1919) is not astylistic experiment, it deals with the controversial issue of women's suffrage, or right to vote—a right championed by Woolf. At the time of its publication, English women over the age of thirty had just finally received voting rights; it would still be another decade before women held the exact same voting rights as men. Where Woolf might have had difficulty finding another publisher for a book dealing with such a subject, access to Hogarth Press left her free to deal with whatever subject matter she saw fit.

This freedom expressed itself more in stylistic terms in her following works. The novel Jacob's Room (1922), for example, tells the story of a character who is never directly introduced to the reader, but only revealed through the recollections of others. Mrs. Dalloway (1925) takes place over the course of a single day and presents the thoughts of characters in a free-flowing way meant to mimic actual consciousness. This description of her characters's “inner life” continued with To the Lighthouse (1927), and both novels earned Woolf the esteem of critics and readers. These novels, despite being experimental in style, directly reflect the author's own literate and well-heeled upbringing in their characters and settings.

Successful Experiments This philosophy of daring and experimental writing is shown in her self-published works. While the novel Night and Day (1919) is not astylistic experiment, it deals with the controversial issue of women's suffrage, or right to vote—a right championed by Woolf. At the time of its publication, English women over the age of thirty had just finally received voting rights; it would still be another decade before women held the exact same voting rights as men. Where Woolf might have had difficulty finding another publisher for a book dealing with such a subject, access to Hogarth Press left her free to deal with whatever subject matter she saw fit.

This freedom expressed itself more in stylistic terms in her following works. The novel Jacob's Room (1922), for example, tells the story of a character who is never directly introduced to the reader, but only revealed through the recollections of others. Mrs. Dalloway (1925) takes place over the course of a single day and presents the thoughts of characters in a free-flowing way meant to mimic actual consciousness. This description of her characters's “inner life” continued with To the Lighthouse (1927), and both novels earned Woolf the esteem of critics and readers. These novels, despite being experimental in style, directly reflect the author's own literate and well-heeled upbringing in their characters and settings.

Circumventing Censorship in Orlando Woolf drew upon her own relationships in Orlando (1928) a book characterized by Woolf as a biography but by most readers as a novel. The main character, who does not grow old and changes genders, is directly inspired by the female author Vita Sackville-West, a bisexual member of the Bloomsbury Group with whom Woolf had an intimate relationship. Many scholars and critics have viewed the main character's gender-switching as a clever device meant to suggest—but not directly depict—a lesbian relationship, since such topics were the subject of censorship at the time.

Depression and Suicide Woolf fought an ongoing battle against depression for most of her life. After her mother's death in 1895, she had a nervous breakdown, the first of four periods of depression and emotional trauma. Woolf had a second breakdown nine years later when her father died. A third episode of mental illness began early in 1912, became acute in September of 1913 (when she attempted suicide), and lasted into 1916.

Circumventing Censorship in Orlando Woolf drew upon her own relationships in Orlando (1928) a book characterized by Woolf as a biography but by most readers as a novel. The main character, who does not grow old and changes genders, is directly inspired by the female author Vita Sackville-West, a bisexual member of the Bloomsbury Group with whom Woolf had an intimate relationship. Many scholars and critics have viewed the main character's gender-switching as a clever device meant to suggest—but not directly depict—a lesbian relationship, since such topics were the subject of censorship at the time.

Depression and Suicide Woolf fought an ongoing battle against depression for most of her life. After her mother's death in 1895, she had a nervous breakdown, the first of four periods of depression and emotional trauma. Woolf had a second breakdown nine years later when her father died. A third episode of mental illness began early in 1912, became acute in September of 1913 (when she attempted suicide), and lasted into 1916.

Symbolism in Orlando:

Symbolic systems, being indispensable elements of any culture, are found in painting, architecture, music, politics, ideology, and many other areas of human activity. In literature, symbolism is a special rhetoric technique that helps the writer to 'present' a concept too abstract or obscure for direct sensory representation, that can be expressed only ―by analogy and by the transference of reflection‖ (Kant, 1951: 198). A literary symbol may be a material thing, a natural element, a person, or an action that is loaded with meaning much deeper than springs to the eye, and interpretation of symbols calls for a broad cultural outlook and the aptitude to see below the surface. Symbol formation is a process of cultural conceptualizations of the physical world through the lens of a society's contemporary world view. Symbolic meaning is a combination of knowledge, intuition, and imagination, a fusion of purely denotative and expressive functions of language, which makes it worthy of an in-depth research. The choice of the author is not accidental. V. Woolf's prose is full of symbols suggestive of hidden messages. This aesthetic device has attracted many researchers, but the most comprehensive analysis of V. Woolf's symbolism is presented by N.C. Thakur in his seminal work where he treats symbols as a technique, worked out ―for projecting the psychological conditions and inner workings of the mind of literary characters under particular circumstances‖ (Thakur, 1965: 197). However, few critics appear to have been interested in studying symbolic imagery in literary texts in relation to cognitive mechanisms that led to the emergence of these symbols and preconditioned their figurative usage. I can cite only the work by Dennis Young (1986), who exposes mythical, religious and philosophical roots, with the emphasis on the Eastern thought, of the androgynous character (Bernard) as a symbol of perfection and wholeness of the eternal in Nature.

 Oak Tree Symbolism 

The oak tree, in addition to general tree symbolism, has developed a rich symbolic paradigm of its own. Like all other trees, it represents the axis mundi, but also stands for something very strong, steadfast and unbending. In the pre-Christian era, the oak was associated with the supreme god in the pantheons of mythological deities of different countries: Zeus (Hellenic Greece), Jupiter (Ancient Rome), Dagda (Celts), Perun (ancient Slavs), and Thor (early Germanic peoples). The tree was described as the 'lightning tree' because it attracted lightning and because the highest gods were lords and masters of rain, thunder, and lightning. The oak was worshiped in many cultures, but it is most closely associated with the ancient Celts who regarded it as 'a cosmic storehouse of wisdom.' Oak groves were considered sacred places and became outdoor sanctuaries for Druids1 . Offerings from people were placed at the feet of the biggest oaks. The Proto-Celtic word for Druid is *derwo-weyd, dru-widgoing back to the Sanskrit word Duir (oak) combined with the Indo-European root *wid- (know), suggests a hypothetical meaning 'the wise ones who have knowledge of the oak.' According to Irish early religious mythology, oaks were introduced to Ireland by Trefuilngid Tre-eochair2 (the Irish god), who on the day of Christ's crucifixion brought a branch on which were acorns, apples, and nuts and sowed them. It was believed to be a branch of the original Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden. The oaks that grew were so great that could oversee and protect each plane below. It was said the tree could bear both acorns and red apples three times a year. The moment the last acorn fell, the first blossom of the apple appeared, symbolizing death and rebirth, but also a source of food and fodder (Stokes, 1983: 458). The idea of oaks being suppliers of food, water, medication, housing, etc. is not confined to the Celtic culture alone. It was believed that ―back in the golden age the oaks dripped honey, and men lived in peace and comfort with no shelter but their boughs‖ (Skinner, 1911: 192). Far away from Europe, in Mission Indians'3 beliefs, Wyot, son of Night and Earth, guardian of all things, when he died poisoned by the frog jealous of his shapely legs and his soul went skyward, became the oak for the ―sustenance of all people and animals and birds‖(ibid.: 197). Oaks are known to have helped the valiant and the valorous. In Medieval France, it is recorded that Jeanne d'Arc frequented the Fairy Oak of Bourlemont and prayed to its spirit, who in return, ―gave her the charmed sword and banner with which she led her country-men to victory‖ (ibid.: 198). Oaks also offer protection to those in danger. The Norse legend has it that Thor found shelter from a violent storm under a mighty oak tree. Oak trees are thought to represent everything that is true. The oldest oracle of Ancient Greece lived in Dodona4 under the sacred oak. Through the rustling of its leaves as they ―low-whispered in the breeze,‖ (Homer) the priests interpreted the messages of Zeus to the mortals. Legends go that Achilles and Argonauts went there to seek advice, and the prow of the Argo was made from one of the sacred oaks and directed the crew. Despite its close affinity with paganism, the oak, due to its symbolic potential, became acceptable to the new faith, and was at the beginning regarded as the tree of Mary. Oak Tree symbolism is amply represented in Scripture. Throughout the Bible, saints and true believers are referred to as trees.

Clothing Symbol:

Clothing symbolizes the artificiality of gender as a social construction in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and it often serves to obscure one’s true gender identity, which the novel suggests naturally vacillates between both male and female. Orlando’s gender identity, both as a man and as a woman, is communicated and represented through clothing. After Orlando transforms from a man into a woman, the narrator is careful to note that nothing else much changes in Orlando’s appearance. “Their faces remained, as their portraits prove,” the narrator says, “practically the same.” When Orlando wears trousers, he is perceived by others as a man. Conversely, when Orlando wears a dress, she is perceived by others as woman. Thus, the novel suggests, it is Orlando’s clothes, not Orlando’s body, that dictates Orlando’s gender.

The same is true for other characters in the novel who find themselves pigeonholed into certain gender identities based on which gender their clothes suggest they are. For instance, when Orlando first sees Sasha skating on the ice during the Great Frost, her masculine Russian clothes make Orlando believe she is a man; and when the Archduke Harry puts on a dress and disguises himself as the Archduchess Harriet, Orlando believes he is a woman even though he is rightly a man. The narrator even points out how the popular style of dress during the 16th century, which is quite elaborate and feminine even for the men’s fashions, obscures Orlando’s then-male gender. “Clothes are but a symbol of something hidden deep beneath,” the narrator argues. The novel posits that everyone has both male and female qualities and that no one is wholly one gender or the other—after all, “often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.”

Dog symbol

Virginia Woolf mentions dogs repeatedly throughout Orlando, and they are symbolic of Orlando’s deep connection to nature within the novel. Orlando’s connection to nature is central to his—later, her—identity, and this connection is reflected in his love of “beasts,” or dogs. Orlando is never without a dog for the entirety of the novel, and he judges other people based on how they treat dogs. For example, after Favilla beats a spaniel for ripping a hole in her stocking, Orlando considers her a “perverse and cruel” woman. On the other, Orlando is willing to forgive Euphrosyne’s introverted and cold personality in large part because she is “never without a whippet or spaniel at her knee” and feeds them from her dinner plate. Orlando’s connection to dogs is so strong that his Seleuchi hound never leaves his side during the week-long sleep that transforms Orlando into a woman, and when Orlando finally wakes up, the dog is “half famished with hunger.”

In Orlando’s experience, people are mostly a disappointment, and after Nicholas Greene gives one of Orlando’s original plays a bad review, Orlando sends his servant to fetch him two of the best elk hounds from Norway. “For,” Orlando says, “I have done with men.” Orlando is repeatedly disappointed by others, and there remains but two things in which he puts his trust: “dogs and nature; an elk-hound and a rose bush.” Dogs remain an integral part of Orlando’s life for hundreds of years. Even as Orlando walks down to the oak tree at the end of the novel to bury her poem, thus repaying her debt to nature, she takes her dogs with her.

These are symbol which use in Orlando novel according to my interpretation Time also i am seen as a symbol because time use as a tool by woolf she was use different  literary ages like Elizabethan Age to Modern Age.use of different type of genre which changing in every age. (3072 WORDS)

Work cite

CANNON, JOHN. “Virginia (stephen) Woolf.” Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/english-literature-20th-cent-present-biographies/virginia-stephen-woolf. Accessed 7 May 2022.

Davidko, Natalya. “Symbolism in V. Woolf's ―Orlando‖ (Cognitive Tools of Figurative Thought).” 2019. Accessed 23 DECEMBER 2019.

Woolf, Virginia. “Orlando Symbols.” LitCharts, 27 August 2019, https://www.litcharts.com/lit/orlando/symbols. Accessed 7 May 2022.