Orlando

“He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.”

The opening line of the novel foreshadows Orlando’s transformation and the novel’s thematic interest in interrogating the concepts of sex and gender. Orlando engages in a traditionally masculine activity: violent warfare and physical domination. By insisting on Orlando’s masculinity, the biographer anticipates those explanations he describes in Chapter 3 that seek to give a realistic explanation for his transformation. The biographer attributes any confusion to the clothing, a topic returned to throughout the novel.

“He was describing, as all young poets are for ever describing, nature, and in order to match the shade of green precisely he looked (and here he showed more audacity than most) at the thing itself, which happened to be a laurel bush growing beneath the window. After that, of course, he could write no more. Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces. The shade of green Orlando now saw spoilt his rhyme and split his metre. Moreover, nature has tricks of her own.”

Nature and writing are often presented as oppositional forces. Nature is marked by its inability to be tamed and its organic composition, which contrasts with the structured and artificial nature of writing. When Orlando attempts to use language to describe nature, he finds it impossible, as language’s capabilities are limited. In addition, the color green is an important motif that recurs throughout the narrative. It symbolizes a connection with nature.

“[...] he forgot the frozen waters or night coming or the old woman or whatever it was, and would try to tell her--plunging and splashing among a thousand images which had gone as stale as the women who inspired them--what she was like. Snow, cream, marble, cherries, alabaster, golden wire? None of these. She was like a fox, or an olive tree; like the waves of the sea when you look down upon them from a height; like an emerald; like the sun on a green hill which is yet clouded--like nothing he had seen or known in England. Ransack the language as he might, words failed him. He wanted another landscape, and another tongue.”

When Orlando tries to describe Sasha, he finds that the English language is insufficient. Both literal words and figurative language comparing her to natural objects fails to capture her full beauty. This echoes the limitations Orlando feels when writing poetry.