Considerations about the ambiguous body in Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928): the dynamics of adrogyny and neo-androgyny

Resumen

The novel Orlando (1928), by Virginia Woolf, shows the presence of cross-dressing as a constant, a fact that highlights the questioning of the normative in relation to female and male corporeality, according to exclusively biological parameters, in which the genitals are the epicentric axis for the classification.

From a diachronic perspective, the vision of cross-dressing, mainly through androgyny, has shown how the dominant culture and thought has considered it to be a characteristic associated with divinity or the teratological and is regulated by medical-legal committees in favor of a biological evolution in accordance with the dominant hetero-normativity.

Through an analysis of Woolf’s novel, the objective of our study is to show gender issues that are practically a century ahead of the debate on gender and identity. From a contemporary perspective, it is evident that through cross-dressing, the author proposes alternatives to the biological binary, questioning the morphology and behavior of socially imposed gender, a position in line with Foucault’s biopower, and opens the possibility to liquid property of gender constructed through physical appearance and behavior. The latter, moreover, is another pillar for gender analysis in Orlando through Sandra Bem’s concept of neo-androgyny or social androgyny.