‘Those mixed middlings’ : the representation of androgyny in James Joyce’s "Ulysses" and Virginia Woolf’s "Orlando"

Abstract

The early Modernist period saw the gradual move away from Victorian prudery towards a more informed, less parochial outlook on sexuality and sexual difference. An acute awareness of the socio-cultural context, and the changes occurring within fields such as psychosexuality, are indispensable to a well-rounded understanding of the two core Modernist texts under consideration here. This study is pivoted on the representation of androgyny in Ulysses and Orlando, by the contemporaries Joyce and Woolf respectively, and seeks to investigate whether the sexual ‘difference’ they portray conforms to societal expectations of gender. Additionally, the following points will be considered: the extent to which Joyce and Woolf were conditioned by contemporary concerns related to gender/sexuality and how the socio-cultural upheaval within this field is translated into two such enigmatic works of fiction; how individuals not appearing to conform to the culturally-determined gender binary of male and female are perceived and treated, and finally how Joyce’s and Woolf’s representation of androgynous characters exposes the undercurrent of tension and transition within the field of sexuality. Chapter I details how transgressive sexuality was perceived from Plato up to the early twentieth century, and charts the shift in perception. Chapter II is a selection of episodes from Ulysses and will include an analysis of two main characters, Leopold and Molly Bloom, together with an investigation of the disparate nature of their androgyny. Chapter III will then go on to explore how Woolf presents her own vision of androgyny in her hybrid novel. To conclude, I will bring Joyce’s and Woolf’s visions of androgyny together and comment on the similarities and/or disparities between them, and whether or not their objectives converge on the same point.