Orlando

The biographer functions as the narrator. They often present important thematic discourse and “background” information to the reader. In writing this biography, the biographer insists that their purpose is “to plod, without looking to right or left, in the indelible footprints of truth” (49) and report the objective history of Orlando and Orlando’s family. Yet the biographer repeatedly encounters obstacles. The details of Orlando’s banishment are “dark, mysterious, and undocumented” (49). For Orlando’s time as an ambassador, the biographer has the “least information to go upon” because the documents were “so damaged or destroyed” (88). This extends to Orlando’s extensive internal thoughts, for which there is no source cited. The biographer must use imagination to fill in the gaps in the record, no matter how much they claim to write only facts.

There are also instances where the biographer inserts their own opinions and interpretations of events. For example, when Orlando’s sexual curiosity upsets Queen Elizabeth, the biographer interjects a defense of Orlando, stating that it “was Orlando’s fault perhaps; yet, after all, are we to blame him? The age was the Elizabethan; their morals were not ours; nor their poets; nor their climate; or their vegetables even. Everything was different” (20). Through the biographer’s attempts to achieve objective truth in their writing, Woolf emphasizes the impossibility of that task while also criticizing the valuing of fact over imagination in the pursuit of poetic truth.

Sasha’s many similarities to Orlando position her as his foil. Like Orlando, she is beautiful. Her gender is equally ambiguous, with clothes often contributing to the difficulty discerning gender. She also claims to have a title and to come from a family with a long and noble history. Like Orlando during this section, she is sexually adventurous and sees herself as superior to those around her. Yet her foreignness and Otherness make her fundamentally different from Orlando. She is deceptive and guarded. Instead of engaging in Orlando’s Romantic fantasy, she flees back to Russia on her own. The nature of her home country symbolizes this difference of character. The coldness of the landscape matches her cold emotions. Like the unmelting ice during their sexual encounter, her heart was hard, and she likely never loved Orlando as he loved her.

Orlando’s renaming of Sasha further reveals the disconnect between characters and cultures. He renames her according to his English ideals, obscuring her Russian nature. The name refers to a white Russian fox he had who was “a creature soft as snow, but with teeth of steel, which bit [Orlando] so savagely that his father had it killed” (33). In choosing this name, Orlando unintentionally foreshadows her duplicitous and sly nature.

Nicholas Greene appears in Chapters 2 and 5 of the book, seeming to also age at the same rate as Orlando. He appears both in 16th century Elizabethan England and 19th century Victorian England. These two appearances towards the beginning and end of the novel allow him to serve as a foil to Orlando. Unlike Orlando, Greene has not changed much over the centuries. His criticism of Victorian poets is his verbatim criticism of Elizabethan poets. He is still garrulous and crass. His transition from poet to critic reflects his desire for fame and good reviews, while Orlando has matured into writing for themselves.

Woolf uses this character to satirize the publishing industry and writers’ obsession with fame and good reviews. Greene does not create great poetry and instead only tears down others, either in his pamphlet mocking Orlando or in his Victorian criticism. His shifting opinion of writers like Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson also shows the fickleness and hypocrisy of critical opinion that only favors older works over modern works.

On the surface, the character of Harry, called Harriet when disguised as a woman, seems similar to Orlando. The novel treats both characters’ genders as fluid and mixed, reflecting Woolf’s argument that gender is less binary than is typically presented. But while both characters experience a gender change of sorts, Harry’s change is not genuine. He wears clothes to disguise his identity and deceive Orlando. This deception reveals his unsuitability for Orlando, who pursues Truth throughout the novel.

Woolf also parodies the romantic hero of the novels of the 18th century with this character. He often rides to Orlando on a horse. He seeks to woo her with gifts, though his gift of an emerald frog is met with a laugh. His willingness to forgive Orlando’s deception about cheating at their game parodies the chivalry of the romantic hero. Orlando’s unwillingness to marry him also subverts the typical arc of a romantic novel.

Rustum al Sadi is the oldest and wisest man among the Romani people. He is one of the first characters to explicitly challenge Orlando’s beliefs about nature, poetry, property, and lineage. While Rustum respects nature, he does not worship it as young Orlando does. Rustum’s experiences with nomadic life during the winter and rain cause him to have a different perspective than the poetic Orlando. Orlando’s desire to write constantly is at odds with a community that does not have pen and ink. When Orlando brags of his large estate, the Roma brush these comments off, as their nomadic lifestyle does not value physical items and land ownership. Orlando believes his lineage is long and storied, but when compared to the long history of the Romani people, Rustum is unimpressed, telling Orlando not to be ashamed of his lackluster family history. Through these contrasts, Woolf highlights the subjectivity of truth and fact by focusing on the importance of context and perception.

Rustum’s voice returns to Orlando throughout the novel, allowing her to question her life and values as she continues to mature over the centuries. Her admiration is reflected in her description of him as a “gentleman” (111). While Woolf presents Rustum as a positive influence on Orlando’s life, Rustum falls into many of the tropes of the “Noble Savage.” Orlando treats him as an exemplar from a barbaric and savage group that can fuel her own growth with his ancient wisdom. Other Romani people are not looked upon as favorably by Orlando and Woolf.