The Dilemma of Woolf\u27s Androgyny: A Close Look at Androgyny in \u3cem\u3eA Room of One\u27s Own\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eOrlando\u3c/em\u3e.

This thesis explores Woolf\u27s concept of androgyny through a comparison of her nonfiction essay A Room of One\u27s Own and her fiction-fantasy novel Orlando. Recent and past critical writings on Woolf and androgyny have been consulted, as well as primary sources including her works, private letters, and diaries. Woolf\u27s concept of androgyny embodies a fundamental dilemma. In A Room of One\u27s Own, Woolf calls for spiritual and mental androgyny while avidly supporting physical, social, and cultural differences between men and women. In Orlando, Woolf creates a character who is unable to reach mental androgyny because of social conditioning of gender and sex roles. The dilemma lies in Woolf\u27s embrace of stereotypical ideas that distinguish men and women, while in the end, such differences inhibit the mental and spiritual androgyny she exalts. The findings shed new light on Woolf and the controversy of her androgynous vision by exposing the fundamental dilemma