Orlando Gender Quotes Page 3
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
| Quote #7 Orlando sipped the wine and the Archduke knelt and kissed her hand. |
Being a "man" and being a "woman" can be "acted." Their genuine selves are different.
| Quote #8 The distraction of sex, which hers was, and what it meant, subsided; she thought now only of the glory of poetry, and the great lines of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Milton began booming and reverberating, as if a golden clapper beat against a golden bell in the cathedral tower which was her mind. (4.16) |
A love for literature is not gendered. In fact, Orlando can think about literature without having to give her new sex any consideration.
| Quote #9 Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. (4.48) |
According to this passage, it’s not genitalia that make us a man or a woman, it’s the clothes we wear. Orlando is treated differently and behaves differently when she is wearing female clothing rather than male clothing. Furthermore, the importance of clothes is a direct result of society. Orlando never really felt like a woman among the gipsies because they wore unisex clothing.
