The longest love letter in foreign literature
Orlando, the most touching love letter in the world, Virginia? Woolf, you're homesick because your best friend ran away from home. In order to express her yearning, Woolf wrote a novel based on her, named? The longest and most touching love letter in the world? The legendary novel Orlando.
abstract
Orlando was originally a noble and handsome boy, loved by Queen Elizabeth, and entered the palace. During the reign of King James, Orlando fell out of favor, lived in seclusion in a country house and was addicted to literature. Later, he became a Turkish envoy with great achievements. On the night of the rebellion in Constantinople, he spent the night with a dancer and slept for several days. After waking up, he became a woman, although his appearance has not changed at all. She left her official position to mingle with gypsies. After returning to England, she became a member of the upper class, met writers such as Pope and Addison, and then married a captain and got pregnant and had children. By middle age, her poems won prizes, her literary thoughts and writing skills became more and more mature, and her spirit became more and more perfect. From the Elizabethan era of16th century to 1928, Orlando's life lasted for 400 years.
works appreciation
theme
French feminist criticism prevailed in the 1960 s, paying attention to the study of language philosophy and thinking that infinite possibilities are hidden in? Nihility is peripheral absence? With what? Suppressed? Medium. In Fuehles' central society, men and women are binary opposites. Men represent positive values, and women are excluded from the center to prove the value of men. In order to maintain the patriarchal system, men try their best to maintain binary opposition, emphasizing that one of them is superior to the other. Deconstructionist feminists thoroughly criticized patriarchal dualism, male centralism and rationalism, trying to crush the thinking habit of binary opposition and either/or.
Orlando's strange life trajectory highlights the limitations of gender binary opposition. The first sentence of the novel embodies the feminist style of deconstruction. The narrator wrote in a vague and playful tone:? Of course, he showed his gender, although the general atmosphere at that time covered it up and stabbed a Moore's head hanging on a beam. ? What young Orlando did was a typical offensive behavior of young male aristocrats in the Renaissance. However,? Although? The next sentence seems to cast some skeptical eyes on his masculinity, which indicates the fuzzy characteristics of the whole novel. The novel adopts deconstruction strategies on many gender identity issues, mocking the traditional gender classification methods. There are often two characteristics of men and women in the same person, and the gender difference is no longer obvious or even suspicious. Orlando, male, sentimental, imaginative and passionate about literature, is a poet. After becoming a woman, the mixture of male and female characteristics is more obvious. She is frank and generous, likes taking risks, hates housework, is brave and positive, but has no male desire for power, is considerate, compassionate and prone to tears.
First of all, from a cultural point of view, gender can not be separated from the shaping of social culture. People always subconsciously fix themselves on the one hand, and restrain their thoughts and behaviors according to the rules. Christeva, a French feminist scholar, believes that text, as an intentional practice, does not want the subject to control the language, but puts the subject in its power network. The subject cannot be fixed, not only divided, but also a developing subject, which refers to both process, development and experiment. This subject is always in the process of development and is always tested in the context of its existence. The mobile subject rejects any fixed gender pattern and identity. Orlando is an ever-changing subject, and its gender changes with the alternation of contexts. After meeting her lover Cher, she was glad that she had become a real woman and shed tears. She was pregnant and had a child. But when she puts on men's clothes, she becomes? Some jazz? Dueling, being a captain, and even being told to elope with a young lady. On the boat back to England, she found that both sexes had foreign vision defects, and the gender characteristics in her mind took turns to confront each other. Finally, in a specific context, the heroic company of the man's battalion chief and the surging tide of returning home made her feminine side temporarily prevail. Orlando's female identity was gradually established in subsequent social activities such as aristocratic gatherings, dinners, and listening to men propose marriage. The subject is adapting to the environment and accepting the test of the environment at the same time. In this process, some factors that are not suitable for the current environment are suppressed and concealed. All these fully reflect the role of context in shaping the subject.
Emphasizing culture does not mean completely ignoring natural factors. Feminists have been debating whether the body is natural or cultural, trying to get an alternative answer. Although their starting point is positive, they can only return to the old dual thinking mode of patriarchal society if they are entangled in this issue, but in fact, the world cannot be so idealized that it is divided into opposing poles. The subject of speech is separated from conscious and unconscious motives, which has both natural characteristics and cultural imprint. Therefore, for the construction of meaning, consciousness and unconsciousness, body and mind, culture and nature are all indispensable components.
Woolf believes that androgyny is the best psychological state of female artistic creation. Everyone is constrained by two forces, one is male and the other is female. The female side of the male mind should play a role, and women should also communicate with the male mind. The normal and ideal state is the harmony of two forces. ? Any writer who is addicted to his own gender is fatal .. Must he become a masculine woman or a feminine man? . Woolf is aware of the limitations of the theory of gender essence and challenges the single value standard centered on male value, but her understanding of women is still the opposite of men in the traditional binary classification, while deconstructive feminists go further. Woman? As a fictional category.
Virginia? Woolf wrote in her diary when she wrote Orlando. I am almost writing Orlando clearly in an ironic style, but I must carefully balance reality and fantasy. ? Because of this, Orlando needs to slowly find the rhythm of life and move towards the best state of hermaphroditism. We can't guess whether Virginia set Orlando's female consciousness as perfection from the day after tomorrow or from nature. But this kind of gender identity is in him. Male consciousness and female consciousness must be struggling to merge and struggle in Orlando's brain, sometimes weak and sometimes strong, sometimes strong and sometimes weak. But there is no doubt that this is a process of harvest. According to myths and legends, whether men and women are split by a sword or a rib in a man's abdominal cavity, they finally find each other in Orlando and become one. Only in this way can men and women finally stop oppression, misunderstanding, prejudice and struggle.
The success of Orlando in the novel is highly praised by Virginia? Androgyny? The embodiment of the theory. The particularity of Orlando lies in the embodiment of this idea through the experience of gender transformation of characters. As the same subject, the protagonist experienced gender changes, thus experiencing two different gender consciousness of men and women. It can also be said that the hero first experiences female consciousness from the perspective of male consciousness, and then experiences male consciousness from the perspective of female consciousness. In addition, a lot of plots and ideas of gender integration in Orlando are closely related to her literature and aesthetic comprehension. Virginia has emphasized several times that a single gender consciousness is the enemy that hinders the sublimation of art, and it is precisely because men or women are occupied by too much male consciousness or female consciousness respectively that they cannot fully reveal their spiritual perception, which hinders art from entering a higher realm.
skill
title
One of the postmodern features of Orlando is the fuzziness of genre. A biography or a novel? Since the publication of the work, this issue has been a controversial topic among critics. As far as Woolf is concerned, she once mentioned herself? It's called biography just because it's fun? . So when the bookseller sells Orlando as a biography, Woolf is worried that it will affect the sales of the book, thinking? Too much for a moment's pleasure? . Nevertheless, Woolf doesn't think Orlando is a novel. When she talked about Orlando in her diary of 1928, she wrote:? Anyway, I finally got rid of writing this time Novel? I hope I won't be accused of this again. ? It seems that in the genre attribution of Orlando, if Woolf didn't deliberately confuse the audience, even she herself would find it difficult or unwilling to clearly define the genre of this work.
Woolf mentioned in her diary, what is she going to do when she is pregnant with Orlando? Incorporate fictional elements into this work organically? The implication is that her original plan is based on facts. In her works, she takes a lot of historical facts and people and things in real life as materials, giving readers a sense of documentary title, style and narrative angle? Hallucinations. Woolf uses biography as the subtitle, and the narrator tells Orlando's life from the perspective of a biographer. This special perspective forms a contract between the narrator and the reader, that is, the work is based on objective facts. Woolf added solemnly? Foreword? Part, at first glance, looks like a thank-you speech before an academic research paper, thanking family and friends for their help, indicating that Defoe, Stern and Emily? The influence of Bronte and other predecessors on her. There are footnotes and eight illustrations in the book, and an index only available in academic works is attached to the back of the book, which neatly arranges nearly 100 entries. All these techniques make Orlando look like a real biography, giving readers a preconceived impression that it is a work based on documentary and rigorous research. Among them, the most difficult and strongest authenticity is the authenticity that can only be found in the British Museum, or the authenticity after all the fallacies have disappeared because of the heavy operation of the chariot? .
narrate
The narrator repeatedly emphasizes in the narrative process? The truth? For example, the importance of? Our task is simple, that is, to state the known facts? ,? We just need to state simple facts? Wait a minute. Traditional biographical writing and those? Is it true? Realistic writers, such as Defoe, Swift, Trop, etc., present readers with a? A moderately proportioned world? The author is careful when writing, lest the readers get suspicious. However, in the name of biography, Woolf deliberately distorted and jokingly broke this ratio in Orlando, creating a character image that crosses gender and time and space at will. As a preacher, Orlando is not a real person in history, which is enough to overthrow Woolf's construction by various means? Real? The similarity in illusion, style and format is only a kind of similarity and parody. Through this vague genre attribute, what will it be? Real? With what? Fiction? Through organic combination and juxtaposition, Woolf reflects on the traditional biography writing techniques and deconstructs the truth advocated by biography. Through the intersection and juxtaposition of realistic narrative and self-reflective narrative, Woolf reveals the internal contradictions of biographical narrative, making readers realize that many materials in the works are based on historical facts, and at the same time realize the fiction and narrative of the works, so as to understand the traditional biographical creation and think about its limitations. This technique brings readers a tense reading experience, and this self-reflection and concern for the writing activity itself also make Orlando have the characteristics of postmodern metafiction.
Write realistically
The work is also contrary to Woolf's favorite stream of consciousness technique, which attaches great importance to the realism of external details and the credibility in Orlando's depiction. Regardless of gender and time, Orlando can be said to be a typical traditional novel character. He encountered all kinds of setbacks in his life, but he finally overcame them and realized himself. This typical realistic description method also creates a kind of? Real? Illusion, and this illusion is the * * * similarity between traditional biographical writing and realistic novel writing.
affect
Orlando carried out Woolf's feminist viewpoint in a humorous and ironic style, which attracted the attention of feminist critics in later generations. Through the creation of Orlando, Woolf liberated from the inferiority of Victorian women and established the confidence of female writers under the suppression of male discourse hegemony. At the same time, she also realized the limitations of the single-sex cage, which prompted her to seek the liberation of both sexes.
It can be said that Orlando embodies Woolf's advanced consciousness in novel creation, and her creative concept has been further developed in the post-modernist novels that flourished decades later. For example, Orlando blurs the boundary between novel and biography in genre, and integrates Woolf's consistent experimental techniques into biographical writing, which brings about changes in biographical writing. This combination of biography and novel creation is used in John? Enver (1945-)1981published Kepler, which was further developed. The humorous, detached, biased and introspective narrative voice in Orlando is a parody of the omnipresent and omniscient narrator in19th century novels. This skill is in John? John fowles's (1926-2005) French captain's woman (1969) is echoed by the narrator.