Summarized & Analyzed: "Orlando"

By Student World

“Orlando” is considered a highly talked-about feminist classic. Several scholars of women’s writings and gender and transgender studies have written extensively about this novel. For several decades after its publication the book remained at the centre of literary debates across the world.

The novel has been adapted several times. It was made into a stage play and movie. The book has been translated into several different languages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Aug 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463426340

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Summarized & Analyzed: Orlando

Student World

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Summarized & Analyzed: Orlando

Student World

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Summarized & Analyzed: Orlando

Introduction

About Orlando

Plot Overview

Complete Summary

Critical Analysis

Note

Introduction

Student World is a group of college lecturers and professors. We understand how high school and college students feel when they are given to read literature, especially classics. They generally get lost in the long and complex sentences, a parade of characters, and shifting narratives, thus making it difficult for them to make head from tail.

Our guide books are written in very simple and clear language, without exaggerating the facts. We do not include our opinions and never become too subjective while analyzing the works of literature.

We try to make our books as easy as possible for students to read them and learn from them so that when they read the original texts of the classics or other works of literature, they are prepared and they know what the work is about.

In this book we have included introduction to the book, plot overview, about major characters, complete summary, and critical analysis.

Although we know that some students do not want to read the original text because they prepare only to pass their exams or tests, yet we insist that they read the original text of the book so that they can understand the subtle aspects of the narrative which can't be presented in this treatise.

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Student World

About Orlando

Orlando by Virginia Woolf is considered as one of her most popular novels. The book was first published on 11th of October, 1928. It primarily presents a very high-spirited narrative that was inspired by the family history of Virginia Woolf’s close friend and lover Vita Sackville-West. It is said that Vita had a very tumultuous family history. Vita was a novelist and poet. It is a rather unusual book that presents how a poet goes through sex change and becomes a woman from man and continues to live for several centuries.

During the lifetime, the poet meets several prominent literary figures of English literary history.

Orlando is considered a highly talked-about feminist classic. Several scholars of women’s writings and gender and transgender studies have written extensively about this novel. For several decades after its publication the book remained at the centre of literary debates across the world.

The novel has been adapted several times. It was made into a stage play and movie. The book has been translated into several different languages.

Plot Overview

In the opening chapter of the novel, the author describes Orlando’s physical appearance. He is described as a young man from a noble family. His family used to go on adventures, and now Orlando also hopes to go on adventures like them.

He had a family of explorers, but Orlando is a poet. He likes being with nature and spends enough time on the hills that are overlooking London.

One day, when Queen Elizabeth I visits the area, she likes Orlando. This is Orlando’s first meeting with the Queen. Two years after that first meeting, the Queen appoints Orlando her treasurer and steward.

One day, Orlando kisses another girl, but unfortunately the Queen catches him in that act. By that time, Orlando happens to have developed liking for spending time with common people. However, his liking for the ordinary people does not last long, and he goes back to the Queen’s court.

One day, Orlando learns that the Queen has passed away and King James I has taken the Queen’s place. Orlando wants to get married now, and he decides