Androgyny And Virginia Woolf

The term"androgyny", derived from Greek mythology, is a quite ancient idea. It is expressed in various fields and many great writers have used the idea consciously or unconsciously, but it was Virginia Woolf, the British novelist, essayist and critic who first formally introduced this idea into literary criticism in her literary essay A Room of One's Own. On the basis of Woolf's androgynous theory, the brain of human being is marked by the characteristics of both sexes. Androgyny is not only an ideal relationship between man and woman, but also a writer's optimal state.This thesis will probe into Woolf's androgynous idea from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The formation of Woolf's androgynous idea has great relation with her parents, the Bloomsbury Group as well as women's movements. Her parents'intimate and consonant relationship deeply influences her feminism of man-woman relationship; the free atmosphere of the Bloomsbury Group, enables Woolf to break from woman's self-disdain of the Victorian time and helps her to establish self-confidence as a female and a female writer under the pressure of the masculine discourse hegemony; the radical behaviors of women's movements enable Woolf to be fully aware of the danger of single sexual polarity, and encourage her to seek the liberation of both man and woman.Woolf not only proposed the idea of androgyny, but also applied it into her creation of literary works, among which Orlando is the most fantastic one, and is usually called"a rhapsody of transgender". The character Orlando is often regarded as Woolf's most exaggerated and ideal character she has ever created. In reality, however, no one can compare with Orlando who lives for nearly four hundred years and gains great success in art at last after sex change without any physical pains. Therefore, such a question is naturally proposed"Is the idea of androgyny a realistic one, or just an ideal that can not be realized?"This thesis holds that if we don't think of a given context, Woolf's androgynous idea seems quite harmonic and perfect. However, if we place the concept into the realistic social environment that takes masculinity as its center, we can find that it is somewhat like a castle in the air, because the idealization of androgyny should take breaking the patriarchal society as the precondition, which is not realistic in the near future. Nevertheless, it is believed that just like communism, with the development of human society, human race will ultimately overcome gender inequality and establish a brand-new society in which men and women can live harmoniously and happily.