Browsing by Author "Chen, Rebecca"

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    The Case for Contradiction: Locating Vitality in Queer Nonsense through Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography
    (2022) Chen, Rebecca; Reckson, Lindsay Vail, 1982-
    A biography charts an individual's life through time, recording important events and details such as birth, education, marriage, and eventually, death. Yet Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography (1928) subverts that expectation in a myriad of ways. This essay establishes how biography and narrative work to enforce heterosexual demands for stability and cohesion using Lee Edelman's theories of "reproductive futurism". J. Halberstam's work on trans biography establishes context for understanding how trans people have been mis-represented in biography and narrative, and explores the necessity for narrative to "embrace contradiction" in order to represent transgender people ethically. Working with these theorists in my interpretation of Orlando, I argue that non-narrative strategies such as contradiction and silence present opportunities for imagining life outside of narrative free from heterosexual demands. First, I trace the presence of contradiction within the narrative of Orlando as well as in the critical discourse surrounding the novel to highlight contradiction as a strategy opposed to narrative. Next, I consider the opportunities that arise when one accepts contradiction in resistance to narrative stability, both through the fictional relationships within Orlando and in the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, the relationship that inspired the novel in the first place. Finally, I will consider other alternatives to narrative such as silence, which gesture further to a world outside our narrative comprehension.