International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences
© 2014 Available online at www.irjabs.com
ISSN 2251-838X / Vol, 8 (1): 34-40
Science Explorer Publications
Superior Occident: British Hegemony over Orients in
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Sara Bakhshandeh Farajpour1* and Leila Baradaran Jamili
2
1. M.A Student of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Boroujerd Branch, Iran
2. Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Boroujerd Branch, Iran
Corresponding author: Sara Bakhshandeh Farajpour
ABSTRACT: Superiority of Occident and inferiority of Orient were and are the place of challenge for
many centuries till now. The superiority of British people resulted in a form of British hegemony. In this
paper, Orlando: A Biography (1928) by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is investigated based on the theories
of Ian Boucam, Edward Said and Homi. K. Bhabha regarding superiority of Occident versus Orient. By
using post-colonial and cultural studies, this paper interprets the events which occur for the main
character, Orlando. Specifically, this paper concentrates on the way in which Woolf portrays Orlando’s
Britishness through British national identity, history, literature and race. It represents Woolf’s nationalistic
desire which constructs Britishness and her xenophobia toward the ‘Others’ and Orients. This paper also
demonstrates how Woolf recreates three and half centuries of British National history and its culture
through the life of an aristocrat. Through the main character, in Orlando, Woolf shows her nationalistic
desires which portray the superiority of the Occident over the Orient/the ‘Others.’ Additionally this paper
indicates Britain’s cultural supremacy in comparison to the other cultures. It puts emphasis on the west’s
claim regarding their own centrality and supremacy versus marginality and inferiority of East. It describes
how Woolf’s desire for Britain glorifies British culture, nation and civilization and criticizes the ‘Others’.
Keywords: Britishness, Nationalism, Culture, Occident, Orient, Hegemony.
INTRODUCTION
This paper tries to illustrate the traces of British hegemony over Orients through post-colonial and cultural
studies. In this process British nationalism rises from desire to acknowledge England as a unified community.
Hence Britain as a western nation attempts to impress its own rules and export its own ideals to non-Western
countries. The paper introduces how Britain as an occidental country views Orientals and considers them as
marginal race. Thereupon the ‘Other,’ the Orient or in another term non-Western is oppressed by and excluded
from the hegemony of the west or the Occident, and they are viewed as inferior and different.
Subjects like Britishness, having a critical view towards the ‘Others’ and a tendency for representing the
superiority and centrality of English race and culture over the ‘Others’ can be found in Virginia Woolf’s works.
Woolf’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a well-known author, journalist and critic. Woolf was impressed and
influenced by the national sense of her father’s writing stated in The Dictionary of National Biography (1885) which
provides brief, official and available biographies of the great figures of British history. This might be a reason for
finding many traces of British nationalism and love of Britain in her literary works. The aim of this paper is to show
how Woolf indicates her love and affection to her home, Britain, by glorifying the superiority of her British culture
and its people over the ‘Others.’
Orlando: A Biography (1928, O) portrays a male aristocrat’s life and adventures which begin in the sixteenth
century when England became a nation in modern sense and continues till the twentieth century. This novel
illustrates the noble Orlando who inhabits the past, present and the future, and falls in love with the Russian
princess. He travels to foreign lands, turns into a female in exotic space, lives among different ethnic groups, and
consequently comes home. It explains how Woolf uses Orlando’s aristocratic love of the land to show the picture of
her ideal home, England. Hence, Woolf glorifies the ideals of Britishness and England and mortifies the other
nations and non-Western countries as uncivilized and inferior. This paper aims to introduce her as a British
nationalist who believes in the superiority of British people over the ‘Others.’
Intl. Res. J. Appl. Basic. Sci. Vol., 8 (1), 34-40, 2014
MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this paper the superiority of Occident and British hegemony over Orients in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is
discussed from post-colonial and cultural viewpoint. It focuses on the superior Occident and its centrality and
domination. The paper depicts how Britishness is portrayed to show the superiority of British history, culture and
people over the ‘Others.’ Clarifying the relation between Britishness and Otherness as well as demonstrating postcolonialism and cultural studies are essential aspects of this paper. Ashcroft and others say that post-colonialism
deals with “[t]he effects of colonization on culture and societies” (169). Post-colonialism also tends to concentrate
on the cultural production of such societies. It is broadly used in historical, political, social, and economic analysis
as far as these disciplines continue to involve “[t]he impact of European imperialism upon world societies” (ibid).
Homi K. Bhabha, in his book The Location of Culture (1994), writes “[c]ultural diversity is an epistemological object”
and he considers culture as “[a]n object of empirical knowledge” (34). He clarifies the word “beyond” which can
help to understand the differences between cultures and puts emphasis on “difference” for cultures (ibid 4). He
demonstrates that the discriminatory effects of cultural colonialism do not refer to a person but to a discrimination of
mother-culture and the other’s culture. In this way Bhabha states, “[t]he difference of other cultures is other than the
excess of signification or the trajectory of desire. These are theoretical strategies that are necessary to combat
‘ethnocentericism’ but they cannot, of themselves, unreconstructed, represent that otherness” (ibid 70).
Hence, Said, in his book Orientalism (1978), explains that Otherness is the outcome of discursive process by
which a dominant group “Us” creates dominated groups “Them” by stigmatizing real or imaginary aspects which
are presented as a negation of identity (43). He notes that the Orient or the ‘Other’ is constructed by the West. Said
believes that through Orientalism, the distinctions between the West/“us” and the East/“them” can be
demonstrated. He asserts that Orientalism is a system of thought which shows the ontological and epistemological
differences between Orient and Occident. As Ashcroft and others believe, Orientalism is “a mode of knowing other”
and “a form of authority” (153). It refers to the representation of imaginary aspects of eastern cultures by western
people. Said argues that the knowledge about the ‘Orient’ or the ‘Other’ is generated not through actual
information, but through western biases. He mentions that the ‘Orient’ or the ‘Other’ can be considered as “figure of
strangeness, difference and exotic sensuousness,” and they are inferior to their European equivalent (Said 1978:
72). He adds, the relationship between the Orient and the Occident is “[a] relationship of power, of domination, of
varying degrees of a complex hegemony” (ibid 5). Said suggests that a semiotic power of Orientalism would
examine different European discourses that construct ‘the Orient’ as a unified geographical, political, cultural and
racial region of the world.
This hegemonic relationship between Orient and Occident reflects itself in the form of overwhelming sense of
nationalism and Britishness as well as dishonoring ‘Others’ in Orlando. Moreover, Woolf’s nationalistic tendency
towards Britain, which constructs her Britishness, recovers English culture and humiliates the ‘Others.’ In this
regard, Ian Baucom, in his book Out of Place: Englishness, Empire, and the Locations of Identity (1999), defines
Britishness “[t]hrough appeals to the identity endowing properties of place” (4). He uses the concepts of race,
identity and empire in order to define Britishness which is in itself related to the concept of power. Britishness,
indeed, distinguishes British people, habits and behaviors from the others. Baucom refers to these concepts to
explain the superiority of Britain as an Occidental country and clarifies their tendency to dominate other countries
and their culture.
Along with such critics, Woolf, as a chauvinist author, shows England as an imagined community through
comparing the cultural distinction between west and east. She clarifies the cultural superiority of westerns over
non-westerns and ‘Others’ in Orlando. The importance of post-colonial studies is demonstrated as the influence of
hegemonic and superior culture on the opinions and ideas of inferior culture. This paper through studying Woolf’s
Orlando indicates her as a British nationalist author who puts emphasis on the superiority of British over the
‘Others.’
DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS
Representing civilized/uncivlized, West/East and Occident/Orient dichotomies which are the outcome of
Woolf’s nationalistic tendency and recognizing her Britishness or love of Britain and her xenophobia in Orlando are
other purposes of this paper. Woolf, through her main character’s life, attempts to show three and half centuries of
English national history and culture. She reveals her Britishness to her home, Britain, by constructing a biography
of a great man (and a woman) and by portraying the history and literature of England.
Comparing and contrasting English culture with other cultures, Woolf finds the English people’s attitudes
toward non-Western as outsiders and foreigners who belong to an uncivilized subject and inferior culture. She
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signifies how the main character, Orlando, supposes his/her British race and how his/her nationality is superior to
the ‘Others.’ She also glorifies the British blood and race as central and dishonors those of Oriental people as
marginal. This overwhelming cultural perspective leads Woolf as an English woman to be proud of her nationality,
blood and race.
Woolf is devoted to her British identity and nationality. Her love to Britain provides the strong sense of
nationalism and chauvinism in her characters. These nationalistic tendency and chauvinism may be the outcome of
being and living in Britain as the place of hegemony and may be viewed as superior means to those non-westerns
who are inferior. This paper investigates the way through which Woolf examines a culture’s construction of
subject’s identities, and discovers some traces of chauvinism and xenophobia in her main character and in herself
which leads to the glorification of her homeland, as an ideal one. Furthermore, she portrays how her character
compares an imaginary English space with the exotic and foreign or Oriental space which is led to projection
regarding the sense of superiority of the Occident and inferiority of the Orient. Woolf clarifies how English
inhabitants suppose other countries as uncivilized, inferior and barbaric. Moreover in Orlando, Woolf highlights her
main character and his/her attempts to make this sense that the Occident is superior to the Orient or the ‘Others.’
She criticizes the ‘Others’ to indicate British superiority and centrality.
Britishness or Superior Occident: British Hegemony over Orients
Britishness distinguishes the British people, race, identity and culture or superior Occident from the other
nations. Ian Bradley, in his book The Spiritual Identity of Britishness: Believing in Britain (2007), outlines three ways
in defining Britishness: the first one is “ethnic term” in which the emphasis is on “ancestry, birth and bloodline”; the
second one is “civic identity” which stresses “legal and political construct of British citizenship”; and the third one is
through “myths, values and customs” (33). Thus Baucom believes, Britishness announced itself as “born of the soil”
(10). In this manner, a notion of ‘homeland’ or place of common origin is a key word. Furthermore British identity is
rooted in the concepts like race and place. Here place is as the race because it effectively qualifies identity. The
emphasis is on racial nationalism and the preliminary aspects of race and linguistic standards are identified as the
first principles of Britishness.
The term nationalism is related to Britishness. Anthony Easthrope (1942-2002), in his book, Englishness
and English Culture (1999), quotes Anthony D. Smith (1926- ) who believes nationalism refers to “an ideology of a
nation” (44). Therefore nation is considered as a community of people whose members are bound together by
sense of unity, universal culture and national perception. According to Bendict Anderson, “[n]ations inspire love”
(qtd. in Easthrope 36). Love of nation creates the sense of national identity and belonging. Anderson puts
emphasis on this issue that similar to the rest of human culture, nation is imagined through the senses of natural
process. He states that communities are different according to their style in which they are imagined not by their
falsity and genuineness. In this way, communities are imagined through traditions, institutions and practices.
Additionally, “[t]he nation collects itself in memory, that memory must be understood as both the recuperation of the
past in the present and the redemption of the present in the future” (Baucom 73). Hence Britishness challenges to
relocate the past.
The notion of Britishness and its formation can be defined in relation to imperialism. In this regard, Bradley
believes Britishness is defined essentially as “an imperial quality” (40). It can be described as the fact that British
imperialism proposes one model that is superiority rather than democracy; it attempts to dominate the will and
desire. In this sense, every nation interprets the self based on the simultaneous inward gaze and outward gaze to
encounter with the fear of the space or race of the ‘Other.’ Then Said in his book, Culture and Imperialism (1993),
states, “because of all empire, all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid,
heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated and unmonolithic” (xxv). Additionally all imperial powers in the vast
places are going to protect their boundaries that highlight the limitations of their colonial intimacy.
In this way, British hegemony can be explained through orientalist’s definitions and explanations. Indeed,
orientalism can be defined as “[a] manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision and study, dominated by
imperatives, perspectives and ideological biases ostensibly situated to the Orient” (Said 1978: 202). These biases
and projections are considered as the signs of western power over the Orient. Said mentions that there are a
shaped theory, practice and knowledge regarding Orients. Based on this theory, the Occident considers “Western
Superiority” and “Orientals inferiority” (ibid 44). Said explains that Occidentals represent themselves as the superior
and higher race in comparison to the Orientals. In this way the Europeans consider themselves as the civilized
world/the west and Orients as uncivilized world/ the east. Hence Orient can be considered as a subject race
dominated by Occident that differentiates what is good from what is bad. Considering these statements, Said gazes
at “the strength of west and the Orients’ weakness” (ibid). Thus the power and the identity of the western cultures
are obtained through the setting itself off against the Orient which is considered as a kind of replacement. Besides
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what makes occidental culture dominant and hegemonic is the notion of superiority of European identity which is in
comparison to people and culture of non-European.
Therefore, hegemony can be referred to the influence and dominion of ideas, traditions, institutions and
culture of one nation or country over the other people’s country. In this regard, Said states that Antonio Gramsci
(1891-1937) demonstrates this cultural control as “hegemony” (ibid 7). Then hegemony can be explained as a
central concept for understanding of “cultural life in the industrial west” (ibid). Based on Said’s opinion, it is cultural
hegemony which gives orientalism “durability and strength” (ibid). Hegemony can be described with some concepts
like strength, authority and dominion; it is related to the superiority of one state over others. Said uses, “the
umbrella of western hegemony over the Orient” (ibid 7) to explain West’s claim of superiority and centrality over the
east. He shows hegemony and domination as important figures of power, and explains how west establishes its
own authority over Orients. Thus the relation between west/east and Occident/Orient can be defined based on
hegemony. Ashcroft and others define hegemony as “[t]he power of the ruling class to convince other classes that
their interests are the interests of all” (106). Then it can be clarified that dominant groups have always dominant
ideas and opinions. Bhabha states, hegemony needs “iteration and alterity to be effective” (29). Subsequently, all
Occidental cultures tend to represent the foreign cultures as uncivilized and inferior which must be ruled and
governed by the Occident.
In this way, westerners impose their own permanent strategy which puts west in a higher position to the east.
Said suggests that Europeans (westerners) consider the Orient or ‘Other’ as a “racist,” “an imperialist,” and “almost
totally ethnocentric” (1978: 204). In this case he states, the strategy of orientalism is based on the flexible
dominance that places the western people in available relationships with Orient without leaving the relative upper
hand. Orientals are defined with the elements of western society. Said illustrates that the people of Orient were not
considered a lot, but they were looked upon through the eyes of citizens or even people as the problems that must
be solved and removed by colonial power. The Occident perceives the Orient as the weak partner for the west.
Hence the Occident controls, dominates and governs the Orient.
Britishness and British Hegemony over Orients in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
British people are proud of their values, rituals, history, race and culture. In Orlando, Woolf frequently
illustrates British traditions, history, race and identity as ideal ones to value her homeland, Britain. Moreover, she
illustrates British superiority and pride in many parts of the novel. She is proud of her British identity and
demonstrates this pride as sense of superiority, dominance and nationalism. Leila Baradaran Jamili (1965- ) states
that Woolf considers the superiority of British people “[a]s a sign of their generosity and nobility” (298). Woolf, by
explaining the biography of male/female aristocrat stresses the wholeness of British blood and race.
Orlando, as a noble boy, is proud of his aristocratic ancestors and follows his ancestors to conquer the
other races. Woolf illustrates Orlando’s nobility and pure race as signs of Britishness:
His fathers had been noble since they had been at all. They came out of the northern mists wearing coronets
on their heads. Were not the bars of darkness in the room, and the yellow pools which chequered the floor,
made by the sun falling through the stained glass of a vast coat of arms in the window? Orlando stood now in the
midst of the yellow body of an heraldic leopard. When he put his hand on the window-sill to push the window open,
it was instantly coloured red, blue, and yellow like a butterfly’s wing. (O 8-9)
Woolf shows that British people are great and noble, she describes British nation as an ideal one and Orlando’s
ancestors and family as one of the ancients and nobles in the history of England, they “had come from
Rome with Caesars” (O 27). Woolf, through Orlando, portrays the traditions of conquest and the wholeness of
British blood and race. Additionally, she represents perfect Britishness by describing Orlando’s physical
appearance:
The red of the cheeks was covered with peach down; the down on the lips was only a little thicker than the
down on the cheeks. The lips themselves were short and slightly drawn back over teeth of an exquisite and almond
whiteness. Nothing disturbed the arrowy nose in its short, tense flight; the hair was dark, the ears small, and fitted
closely to the head. (O 9)
Based on these descriptions, Orlando is handsome and Woolf portrays his physical appearance as the
embodiment of an idealized appearance of a British man. Orlando’s physical appearance reinforces the greatness
of his/her character. He, as a young noble man from a high noble race, can be demonstrated as an androgynous
character. Woolf tries to exhibit Orlando in a way that makes him ambiguous. Therefore it can be regarded that
Orlando’s portrayal is a factor in his ambiguous gender identity.
Among the gypsies in Brussa, Orlando as a British woman is not able of understanding the dominant cultural
ideology in gypsies because their culture is totally different from her own British culture. Biographer explains
Orlando “who was English root and fibre, should yet exult to the depths of his heart in this wild panorama, and gaze
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and gaze at those passes and far heights, planning journeys there alone on foot where only the goat and shepherd
had gone before” (O 72). Baradaran Jamili explains how Woolf observes “[t]he Turkish people and their culture
from the view point of her Englishness and centrality” while considering them “as a marginal race” (298). She
glorifies English values in contrast to non-English and Oriental values and differentiates British society from the
East. She depicts British people as civilized, rational and central. When Orlando explains about the three hundreds
sixty five rooms of her English house:
One night when they were questioning her regarding England, she could not help with some pride
describing the house, where she was born how it had 365 bedrooms and had been in the possession of her family
for four or five hundred years. Her ancestors were earls, or even dukes, she added. At this she noticed again that
the gipsies were uneasy […] they were courteous, but concerned as people of fine breeding are when a stranger
has been made to reveal his low birth or poverty. (O 88)
The gypsies consider Orlando’s aristocratic mansion as a symbol of her “low birth” (O 88) or race while
Orlando is proud of her aristocratic heritage. Moreover, the gypsies cannot understand her British pride and her
love of motherland.
Moreover, Orlando’s displacement from Britain leads her to return to Britain in order to recover her
Britishness and British national identity. Orlando cannot omit the control of his/her original and British tendencies
and she cannot separate herself from Britishness. For Orlando, Britain signifies the familiar, the homeland that a
traveler must return to; therefore, Orlando decides to return to her imaginary motherland in the eighteenth century.
According to Said, culture is “[a] source of identity and a rather combative one at that, as we see in recent ‘returns’
to culture and tradition” (1993: xiii). Britain provides Orlando a sense of security and comfort and she returns “to her
English blood and finds the Occident and its civilization superior to the Orient” (Baradaran Jamili 217). Her British
identity which is rooted in the land of Britain remains stable. In brief she cannot detach herself from her British
culture and Britishness. Orlando cannot live without her Occidental culture and she goes back to her Britishness
and her British blood. As Baradaran Jamili states, “Orlando sees the homeland as ‘an enclosed gypsies garden’ or
‘sanctuary’” (225). For Orlando, homeland can be regarded as an object of desire, nostalgia and identity.
Another instance of Orlando’s Britishness in the novel is her marriage to “Marmaduke Bonthrop
Shelmerdine” (O 148), who has androgynous features like Orlando and when they encounter:
An awful suspicion rushed into both their minds simultaneously. “You are a woman, shel!” she cried. “You
are a man, Orlando!” he cried Never was there such a scene of protestation and demonstration as the took place
since the world began. (O 149)
They both understand that they are from the same type. Orlando’s and Shelmierdine’s relationship signifies
“[t]he liminality and transcendence of the androgyne and the androgynous union” (Koppen 61). Woolf calls him
“Bonthrop” that means “England” (Baradaran Jamili 234). He is the embodiment of an adventurer, a traveler and
Orlando’s desire for the east and Orient; moreover, Orlando’s marriage and union with Shel brings her “extremely
happy position” (O 159) in the English community. Orlando needs English blood and Shelmerdine provides the
sense of perfection and fulfillment in her life.
Hegemony reinforces the idea of superiority of European identity over non-European people. It constructs
the idea of power and dominion of the Occident as pure race over the Orient as marginal race. Systematically, such
an encounter between European and non-European people signifies the British imperiality and west’s supremacy
over Orients. According to Baucom, the British people attempt to “control, posses, order and dis-order the nations
and the empire’s spaces” (4). In this way, Woolf begins her novel with Orlando’s violent action at Moor’s head and
writes that he:
was in the act of slicing at the head of a moor which swung from the rafters. It was the color of an old
football. Orlando’s father, or perhaps his grandfather, had struck it from the shoulders of a vast Pagan who had
started up under the moon in the barbarian fields of Africa; and now it swung, gently, perpetually, in the breeze
which never ceased blowing through the attic rooms of the gigantic house of the lord who had slain him. (O 8)
The image of head of Moor or the ‘Other’ is described as someone deformed; Orlando’s action against the
head of Moor flaunts his attempts to follow British traditions which entitle him with class and racial superiority.
Therefore Orlando is also proud of his racial superiority over the Orients and the ‘Others.’ Woolf explains the image
of head of Moor as inferior and deformed in the eyes of Occidental Orlando. Being racially inferior, the Orients are
destined to be defeated. In this regard, Bhabha writes, “[t]he work of hegemony is itself the process of iteration and
differentiation” (29). Woolf’s choice of Moor’s head to signify British hegemony makes Orlando’s performance
powerful as a superior Occident. By Orlando’s attack with the head of Moor, Woolf stresses that such masculinity is
rooted in British identity which leads him to enjoy power and dominion. Natania Rosenfeld, in her book, Outsiders
Together: Virginia and Leonard Woolf (2000), writes “[t]he Moor is long dead and the imperial battle would seem to
have been won” (136). Baradaran Jamili writes, “‘head of Moor’ or the ‘barbarian fields of Africa’ is a sign, a
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message, an ‘inflection,’ a meaning transformed into form’” (225). Another instance when biographer explains,
“Orlando’s fathers had ridden in fields of asphodel, and stony fields, and fields watered by strange rivers, and they
had struck many heads of many colours [sic] off many shoulders, and brought them back to hang from the rafters”
(O 8). In this sense British culture is not regarded only as natural property of its community but also as a means of
power and oppression. It is obvious that the British situation of that time was masculine in its history and Orlando
was in a male-dominated Britain. Orlando has been motivated to exhibit the empire’s glory since his childhood.
Superior Occident in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Said states European’s claims regarding their “[i]dentity as a superior one in comparison to all the NonEuropean peoples and cultures” (1978: 7). Woolf shows the wholeness of English race and society over the other
nations. For instance, when Orlando plans to join the British imperial military force, he arranges himself to be a
typical British man. He naturally follows the values and rituals of British imperialism and is aware of values and
conventions of his own homeland, Britain. It is Orlando’s British imperialistic tendency that determines his violence
and aggression toward the other races and nations. Moreover the imperial subject that Orlando learns to play is
modeled on his ancestor’s manly behaviors. The imperial knowledge that Orlando receives is mainly taken from his
fathers’ stories of conquest in foreign lands. Orlando’s promise to ride like his father and brothers in war embodies
his desire and willingness to play the role of British hegemony over the other nations and countries. Julia Briggs
has pointed out that Woolf “recognized that ideals of Englishness were intended to arouse the envy of foreigners,
the pride and protectiveness of its natives” (202). Woolf, indeed, visualizes the expeditionary tradition of Britain in
Elizabethan era. She also portrays, “Elizabethan military fortifications and warships as well as Orlando’s diplomatic
journey as an ambassador to Turkey” (Baradaran Jamili 202) to demonstrate British hegemony in east and other
countries. She puts emphasis on the presence of British Empire and power in Turkey.
Woolf places Orlando in Turkey that is unlike his homeland, Britain and stresses the differences between
them by demonstrating Constantinople in terms of the aspect it does not share with Britain. In this regard, she
highlights the portrayal of British superiority in Turkey:
These fears seemed, for the moment, groundless and observing the demeanor of the natives… I came to
the conclusion that this demonstration of our skill in the art of pyrotechny was valuable… because it impressed
upon … superiority of the British… indeed sight was one of indescribable magnificence. (O 75-6)
Baradaran Jamili asserts, in European horizons the image of east and Orientals are shown as “[t]he outcome
of hegemonic ideology which sees and constructs the Orients Occidentally” (229). When Orlando is placed among
gypsies in Brussa, she discovers the superiority of her British race over gypsies. However the gypsies consider
Orlando as one of them “she was, by birth one of them” (O 85). Even they confer Orlando a gypsy heritage but she
stresses her British pure blood as a means of superiority to them. Orlando insists on the fact that she is from “an
ancient and civilised [sic] race whereas these gipsies were an ignorant people” (O 87). Orlando believes that
gypsies are savage and ignorant people and expresses her supremacy over them as a British woman. Baradaran
Jamili argues, “Orlando recognizes the superior order, nationality and symmetry of England and the inferior
disorder, irrationality and primitivism of the gipsies, as the self confirming parameters which motivates her to return”
(233). Hence, she discovers the Occident and its culture superior to the Orient. When she returns to homeland, she
remembers her discussions with Rustum Al Sa’di and states:
“By my life, she exclaimed, this is a thousand times better than Turkey, Rustum,” she cried, as if she were arguing
with the gipsy (and in this new power of bearing an argument in mind and continuing it with someone who was not
there to contradict she showed again the development of her soul) “you were wrong.” This is better than Turkey. (O
105)
Orlando’s British identity is more powerful than the exotic space. Finally Woolf depicts the tendency of
British women’s travelers to home and represents that they cannot leave British traditions and their national
identity.
CONCLUSION
This paper indicates how being British is influenced by gender, race, empire and history, and how Woolf
glorifies British culture in comparison to the other nations’. It clarifies the way through which British history and
identity are related to each other and how Woolf through a biography recovers the British national history. It
indicates how the main character challenges to show the superiority of British and occidentals and inferiority of
Orient, and how Woolf explains British and occidental culture, race, history and literature in comparison to Orient.
It explains that Britain is shown as an ideal country and higher to the oriental nations and countries. The
paper also indicates that the Occident or West ignores the Orient or East’s history and race by showing “us” as
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civilized and noble and “them” as uncivilized. In this way, the Occident generalizes the ideas about the Orient as
inferior, less intelligent and deformed.
The paper reveals the strategies by which Britishness and hegemony have an effect on the identities of both
Orient and Occident and the ways through which the Oriental’s mind and thoughts are influenced by the
Occidental’s in their own homeland. It shows how Woolf, by placing the main character in a foreign land, portrays
the confrontation of the main character’s Britishness with the rootlessness and freedom of the Orient. Thereupon it
depicts the way through which Woolf clarifies the superiority of English national culture over marginality and
inferiority of non-English national culture.
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