On Virginia Woolf’s Thought Of History In Orlando: A Biography

As one of Virginia Woolf’s major novels, Orlando:A Biography has attracted many scholars’ attention. It tells the story of Orlando, a young nobleman who lives in the Elizabethan England. During more than three centuries of time, Orlando becomes a woman and witnesses various historical changes. The story in the novel ends in 1928, the year of the novel’s publication, when Orlando only reaches the age of 36. In Orlando, numerous historical events are displayed in over three centuries of time, and Orlando serves as a unique witness for his/her change of identity and trans-sexuality. Therefore, the novel is a good reflection of Woolf’s thought of history. Although Woolf’s historical consciousness has drawn attention of some scholars with the emergence and development of New Historicism, there is no systematic study on her thought of history in Orlando. The novel not only expresses her reflection on historical truth, but also reveals her attitude towards historical changes, her special perspective of observing history, and her explanation of how dominant ideology affects the writing of history. Through probing into these issues, this thesis aims to explore Woolf’s thought of history.In Orlando:A Biography, Woolf’s thought of history is largely comprised of her attitude towards historical truth. Woolf reveals the limitation of traditional historical writings and questions the reliability of the historical truth recorded in them. She believes it is inherently impossible to avoid unintentional subjectivity and intentional selection and distortion of certain past events in traditional historical writings. Any traditional historical writing can only reveal part of the historical truth. Since absolute truth in history can never be reached, the only thing one can do is to approach the truth of history but not attain it. She suggests that memory is an important method of integrating the fragmented facts of the past, and memory needs to be "processed" by poets or novelists in the work of art so as to allow people to get a more reliable glimpse of history. In the patriarchal society, various hierarchies exert profound influence on the formation of official history, i.e. the historical truth recorded in traditional historical writings. In Orlando, Woolf adopts the image of carnival to challenge the hierarchies of the patriarchal society in order to challenge the authority of the official history recorded in traditional historical writings. She also undermines the strict distinction between history and fiction, which challenges the dominant position of traditional historical writings and further enables her to blend historical fact with fiction to create Orlando as an imagined but truthful character. Besides, Woolf employs anecdotes and other unauthorized incidents as a supplement to her method of approaching historical truth. Through these methods, Woolf tries to reconstruct history and propose her version of British historical truth. She reexplains historical changes, providing another perspective of observing history. She also releases the silenced voices of gypsies and women to reevaluate the dominant ideology of British patriarchal society and reveal the mechanism of hegemony in culture and gender. Besides, she makes an attempt to challenge the official version of British literary history and to further reevaluate it.Woolf’s thought of history reflected in Orlando is revolutionary in nature since it tries to subvert the hierarchies of noble/humble, male/female, civilized/savage, and history/fiction. Woolf criticizes British mainstream ideology which stands for the interests of men and the ruling class, and effectively challenges the dominant position of traditional historical writings on which British mainstream ideology exerts profound influence. However, her attitude towards the continuity of history and historical changes shows the conservative aspect of her historical thought. Therefore, it can be concluded that Woolf’s thought of history reflected in Orlando is unique and complex. It is hard to be categorized into any particular school of thought, but it anticipates many significant theories about history.