Orlando

The reader’s first encounter with Orlando illustrates two key thematic concerns of the novel. The opening line reads, “He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.” (1). The narrator’s emphatic declaration of Orlando’s gender prepares the reader to pay attention to questions of gender fluidity and performativity. Orlando’s family history and nobility are also on display. The shrunken head he is fighting came, according to the biographer, from Orlando’s father or grandfather. Orlando’s family has been noble for as long as they can remember. His ancestors rode through “fields of asphodel” (11), which are symbols associated with the peace Greek warriors receive upon death. This lineage of nobility is thus also a lineage of barbarism and colonialism. Although the author’s perspective never wavers from that of a white European beneficiary of English colonialism, Woolf does acknowledge the consequences of British imperialism. This theme will reemerge later when Orlando travels to Constantinople and the city erupts in an anti-Christian uprising.

The reader’s first glimpse at Orlando’s writing reinforces his youthful nature and his tendency to imitate and conform. His writing is pretentious and melodramatic, with titles such as “Æthelbert: A Tragedy in Five Acts” (13). His archetype characters of “Vice, Crime, and Misery” (13) reveal Orlando’s immaturity in his oversimplification of human characteristics. Despite the melodramatic nature of his youthful writing, his use of “an old stained goose quill” (13) underscores Orlando’s long, consistent practice of writing and his pursuit of inspiration. The symbol of the goose will return at many points in the novel, and it tends to symbolize the chasing of something elusive—specifically, Orlando’s attempts to capture nature through writing.

Orlando’s unsuccessful attempt to describe the green of nature reveals the inadequacy of words and poetry: “Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy” (14). The inability of words to fully describe certain topics recurs throughout the novel. This incident also reveals Orlando’s lack of poetic skills.

When the Queen comes to visit his family’s estate, she is quickly smitten with Orlando, soon calling him “my innocent” (19). In her courtly life, the “sound of cannon was always in her ears” and she “saw always the glistening poison drop” (18). In contrast, Orlando embodies an innocence that she desires, for “[i]nnocence, simplicity, were all the more dear to her for the dark background she set them against” (18). His “heart of gold; and loyalty and manly charm” (18) attract her to him. When she discovers Orlando kissing another girl, this image of innocence is shattered, and the Queen is enraged. The intensity of her rage, which causes her to violently shatter the mirror with a sword and call the girl a “brazen hussy” (20), suggests that the Queen and Orlando’s relationship was sexual, despite Elizabeth’s reputation as the Virgin Queen. As the Queen symbolizes England itself, Orlando’s failure to meet her standards is an early example of the difficulty he has in conforming to societal expectations.

The biographer’s interjections of interpretation in the novel’s first chapter indicate that this “biography” is going to be far from pure fact. Their frustration that the sounds of workers on the estate has “began that riot and confusion of the passions and emotions which every good biographer detests” (13) reveals the biographer’s work is influenced by personal preferences. The biographer’s defense of Orlando’s youthful indiscretions after describing the Queen’s rage are not based in a factual document. Instead, they interpret his actions. The biographer states, “Everything was different” (20) during the Elizabethan era. While it “was Orlando’s fault perhaps,” the biographer asks if “after all, are we to blame Orlando?” (20) as he “followed the leading of the climate, of the poets, of the [Elizabethan] age itself” (21). The biographer’s insertion of their own opinions undermines their claims to present objective truth. This reflects Woolf’s broader literary approach in that she believes that a life cannot be captured through a dry recitation of facts. The subjective and even the imaginary must be employed to convey the full breadth of an individual. For example, the surrealist language that Woolf uses in the chapter’s final image of the ice thawing and people floating to their deaths contributes to the magical quality of the book, even if the real events of the Great Frost were somewhat less dramatic. Her emphasis on language over fact reflects her thesis about the role of biographies.

Finally, the name of the title character alludes to a character in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The name hints at the intertextuality that abounds in the novel. It also gestures at the main character’s desire to be a poet and their reverence for Shakespeare. In As You Like It, Orlando is a young nobleman who believes himself to be a poet. He falls in love with Rosalind, who is currently disguised as a boy and helping Orlando woo her. The allusion foreshadows the book’s fluid approach to gender and prepares the reader to consider questions of identity and love.