Orlando

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider the connection between social expectations and specific gender norms in Western society. How have these changed over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries? Which historical movements helped transform the traditional understanding of gender roles in contemporary society?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider Woolf’s theme of The Construction and Performance of Gender through a historical lens. Woolf uses the protagonist Orlando to trace the relationship of women to a patriarchal society from the Elizabethan era to the early 20th century. For Woolf, gender is a social construct dictated by social norms of a specific historical period and enforced by outward appearances, such as clothing and marriage. Woolf is critical of women’s place in society in all periods of Orlando’s life; however, she is most critical of the Victorian era, as the regulation of women—coupled with the expansion of British imperialism—resulted in the rerouting of women’s roles from the public to the private, domestic sphere. To introduce Woolf’s theme regarding gender, consider providing students with access to the resources below; they may benefit from annotating the texts in a take-home assignment.