Virginia Woolf, born in 1882, is considered one of the first and most important modern feminist writers. In Orlando: A Biography, she addresses and subverts the concepts of gender roles and gender identity and, on the other hand, addresses the subject of biography and novels. Woolf's work was innovative at the time because it challenged the Victorian values ​​held by much of society. Surrounding herself with like-minded family and friends and creating an environment in which controversial and experimental writing was encouraged, she was able to openly discuss these problematic topics. This essay aims to explain and discuss the similarities between gender and genre shown by Woolf. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay First of all, it is mandatory to define what is considered a biography and what is considered a novel, so that It is possible to analyze the elements of one or the other throughout the book. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a biography as "the story of a person's life written by someone else", with this concept it is perfectly rational to consider Orlando: A Biography as a biography. However, biographies often tell a true story, stating facts through careful study of documents about the person the biography is about. Although there are facts and actual geographical references in this book, it could also fall into the category of fiction, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "the type of book or story that is written about characters and imaginary events (…)” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2015).Before proceeding with any discussion of the above-mentioned topics, there must be agreement on the genre to which the book actually belongs. Calling it a biography feels like stretching the truth a bit, even if the fact that it's called such justifies that classification. Plus, it actually seems like a biography until some pretty incredible things happen: magical sex changes, characters living for centuries, inexplicable week-long sleeps, etc., that belong to a fiction novel. Hermione Lee, president of Wolfson College and author of one of several Woolf biographies, says that "Virginia Woolf and her contemporaries were on the eve of the revolution that transformed biography into an iconoclastic, talkative art form that it is today, when the only taboo is censorship. (Lee, 1996) In saying this, Lee seems to imply that all of Woolf's works, including Orlando, were a fundamental part of the evolution of the term "biography." However, I think the most appropriate thing to do is to divide it into two genres; when Orlando changes from a man to a woman and all the strange events happen, the book also changes from a biography to a novel. As mentioned earlier, Woolf and her contemporaries challenged the traditional concept of biography, which eventually changed. In this book, Virginia does the same thing with gender, giving new perspectives to her concept. Orlando, the main character, completely breaks and transcends masculine and feminine categories, showing that gender norms and conventions are socially constructed and disrupts them (Rognstad, 2012). Needless to say, while the story of Orlando might be based on true (mostly geographical) events, the story is clearly fantastical. As Woolf said, it must be “true but fantastic.” Among these elementsfiction, time and genre both stand out. This approach to chronology allowed, on the one hand, Virginia to show how time affected the main characters. On top of this, the writer – in a controversial move for the time – plays with the concept of gender, having Orlando transition from male to female almost effortlessly and without much explanation as to why or how this happens. In this process, Purity, Chastity and Modesty appear personified in order to show the qualities that women were expected to exhibit at that time, and although they use their magic in Orlando's bedroom, she never becomes particularly pure, chaste or modest once she is a woman. As mentioned before, Orlando's gender change could be that simple for plot purposes; yet, this could be interpreted as expressing Woolf's beliefs about gender. That being said, it is not set in stone; it is fragile and unreliable. In A Room of One's Own, Woolf explains: "one must be woman – manly or man – woman" (A Room of One's Own, 1929), since no one can exhibit all the characteristics assigned to their gender at the same time. manifests itself in the transition of the book from the bibliography to the novel; Woolf doesn't try to explain it and we as readers should just accept it as it is. The gender change simply occurs when Orlando goes to Türkiye to get away from his lover. There he falls asleep for a long time and eventually wakes up as a woman. The character does not question what is happening; instead, he accepts her and lives with a gypsy community before returning to England, where she becomes completely accustomed to living as a woman. It may seem, if you haven't read the book, that Orlando is some sort of strange creature capable of doing extraordinary things like gender-swapping, but that's not the case. In many ways, he's like everyone else: struggling with life, the demands of society, love, and a career. When he lives with gypsies, Orlando does not fully realize the situation he finds himself in; it is upon her return to England that she understands her new position in society as a woman and begins to struggle with what society demands. She begins to be treated differently by people and begins to think, just by looking at her clothes, that she can no longer do everything she did before changing her sex, otherwise, if she did, it wouldn't would not be socially accepted. Here we can see that the place a certain gender occupies in society is nothing more than a social construct. This, of course, was much more radical in the times in which Orlando lived. Additionally, it's easy to see that Orlando only realizes that she needs to act differently when people start treating her differently because of her gender. The captain, his servants, and pretty much everyone else treats her like a woman, so she has to act like she's supposed to. Rongstad says that Orlando, as well as A Room of One's Own, could be considered studies in androgyny, not in the sense of physical androgyny, but mental androgyny. Orlando, obviously, is the perfect example of this type of spirit, given that she shows aspects of both genders equally throughout the novel. Gender change and questions of identity can be addressed in both a biography and a novel. However, the side that Woolf shows on these topics is incredibly personal and detailed, making the book a post-genre transformation novel. In chapter 3, when the transformation occurs, Orlando goes from him to them to her: “Orlando had become a woman, there is no denying it. But in all other respects,.