Man for the first part of the book, then woman, Orlando lives throughout several centuries in Britain- occasion for the writer
to show and most of all to criticise throuh irony and parody, mentalities and actions. Changing
genders, Orlando reflects the differences in position and experience between the two genders.
As a man, Orlando is a wealthy nobleman, an artist, a poet. As a woman s/he ends the novel as a reflective person. Orlando changes himself to fit the rules of the
society an age where s/he is introduced. Conformity to society is replaced by the end of the novel with the growing mind independendence.
Among the ages Orlando lives through, the Victorian age- symbolized by the gathering of clouds over London, is shown the most suggestively as suffocating and oppressive.
One of the most important ideas of the novel refers to the fact that there is more than one truth to a person''s life. When describing a person''s life "plodding without looking right or left" would be the worst path to take considers Virginia Woolf.