FIN DE MILLENNIUM, FIN DE BINAIRE. Analysing Queerness in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to analyse Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando from a queer perspective, focusing both on transgenderism as well as bisexuality and pansexuality. The questions the essay tries to answer is if Orlando is queer, and to what extent this is portrayed in a respectful manner. In order to do this, the novel relies on Julia Serano’s theory of gender as consisting of intrinsic inclinations, and labels everything which violates the heterosexual matrix as queer. To analyse to which degree the portrayals are respectful, lists of stereotypes are applied. The main results are that Orlando is a very queer novel, both regarding gender and sexuality, and while the novel performs queerness in a respectful way, this respect is always conditional and the novel does conform to some stereotypes. The argument of the essay is that the character Orlando belongs to a non-binary gender category, and displays a bisexual or pansexual attraction pattern, and other characters subvert gender and sexual norms in similar ways.