An Interpretation of Androgyny in Orlando

Virginia Woolf’s view of androgyny is concerned with gender issues, especially the plight of women’s survival from the perspective of feminism. But in fact, Woolf’s view of androgyny focuses on exploring the common problems of life in the soul beyond the two sexes. In Orlando, Woolf puts her soul in a scene built by realistic conditions, mixes these external conditions in an unrealistic form, and grasps the reality of life in a hybrid and abstract way. Androgyny not only allows the works to express life from a diversified perspective, but also points out the common understanding of the mind in the external scene. The concept of androgyny in Orlando reflects Woolf’s concern, inheritance and development of Coleridge’s concept of androgyny, which reflects her focus on the natural state of life and tries to get rid of the limitations of binary vertical differentiation in reality.