Orlando (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by SparkNotes

Author:SparkNotes [Sparknotes Editors]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Study Guides
ISBN: 9781411476998
Publisher: Spark
Published: 2014-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

Analysis

The narrative structure of Orlando values the personal over the political. While the main focus of the novel remains the story of the protagonist, we are constantly aware of the historical background of the events. Though the narrative defies a consistent chronological structure, it is possible to piece together the succession of Kings and Queens in order to roughly determine when events take place. During the Glorious Revolution of 1688, for example, when William of Orange usurps the throne from King James II, Orlando is in a gypsy camp far away in Turkey. Such a conflation of actual historical events with the story of a fantastic, fictional life, changes the nature of the biography. It evidences the interconnectedness of all events while allowing the personal, internal story to take precedence over "facts." Thus, Orlando's biography, much of it an internal monologue, exists alongside a framework of other, more 'definite' and more masculine history.

The description of Orlando's gender change is both poetic and sudden. The three ladies of Chastity, Purity, and Modesty attempt to control Orlando while he is in a trance, but the trumpeters of Truth frighten them away, waking Orlando from his deep sleep. When Orlando awakes, he is a woman. This passage may at first appear confusing, but the Ladies and the trumpeters are merely the narrator's means to describe the process of Orlando's change. Modesty, Purity, and Chastity work to cover Orlando, to prevent his new, true self from being shown to the world. But the strong duty to tell the Truth means that the narrator must reveal to the reader what truly happened to Orlando. Though it seems neither modest, nor chaste for Orlando to reveal his himself to the world as a woman, he does so nonetheless. This scene is a metaphor for the act of revealing one's true self to the world, no matter how different it may be from what people may expect. There are those, the narrator writes, who wish to hide the truth in darkness. Orlando as a novel, brings Truth to light, exposing the tenuous line which separates male from female, suggesting that the qualities of both may even be combined into one being.

We learn that Orlando's character hardly changes, except for the appearance of his body. Indeed, to Orlando, the change is so slight that she hardly notices it. She looks herself up and down in a long mirror, and walks calmly to her bath. Gender is not nearly so important to Orlando as the other qualities that make up a person. This idea is immediately apparent in the gypsy passage which follows the gender change. In the gypsy camp, Orlando reveals her deep love and reverence for nature, which is in stark contrast to the gypsies who treat nature as a harmful adversary. The difference between Orlando and the gypsies is likewise highlighted when Orlando talks of her enormous house with 365 bedrooms. Old Rustum takes Orlando aside and tells her that she should not be embarrassed for having so much of what she does not need.

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