This essay is a close reading of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: a Biography that focuses on representation of gender in the novel and the possible response it elicits in the reader. The essay argues that the implied reader of Orlando - as manifested in the novel - is a feminist one, as well as it explores the possibility of this implied feminist reader being a female. The reasons as to why this could be are extensively examined by analyzing the main character Orlando as he metamorphoses from an English nobleman into a grown woman. To support the thesis, the essay looks both into reader response criticism and feminist criticism to clarify what an implied reader actually is. The similarities between Orlando and “A Room of One’s Own” are also touched upon as these suggest that the implied reader is a feminist. The essay then takes a closer look at the narrator of the novel and what this narrator suggests about the identity of the implied reader of the novel. In addition to this it is also concluded that s/he controls the reader’s perception of Orlando’s gender in the novel, and that this also echoes the ideals presented in “A Room of One’s Own”. The essay concludes that the implied reader of Orlando indeed is a feminist, but not necessarily a female one.

Le roman zolien est éminemment bavard. Il n’est pas toujours aisé de déterminer d’où ça parle, qui, du narrateur ou de ses doubles – hommes d’Église, d’État, d’affaires, de lettres ou de science – prend et parfois confisque la parole. Mais il est évident que cette voix qui s’infiltre dans le récit officiellement objectif du roman naturaliste est infailliblement une voix masculine. Informé, autorisé, voire autoritaire, le discours masculin prend en charge la diction du féminin tout en le renvoyant au silence, à l’approbation, éventuellement à la répétition docile des "vérités" édictées à son sujet, pour son bien. Il ne s’agit pas seulement de dépister les tendances stigmatisantes d’un type de discours propre à un type de personnage, mais aussi de saisir les effets sur les lectrices, destinataires muettes et fantasmées, de la pédagogie tyrannique d’un écrivain tout à la fois habité des stéréotypes de son temps et travaillé d’un réformisme inédit. / The Zolian novel is eminently talkative. It is not easy to point out where the voice comes from ; who gives and takes the right to speak, be it the narrator or his doubles – men of the Church or of the State, men of business, letters or science. What is obvious however, is that this voice which permeates the officially objective narrative of the realistic novel is infallibly a masculine one. Informed, authorized, even authoritarian, the masculine discourse takes on the feminine one by either silencing it, or allowing it to approve of, sometimes to reiterate obediently, the elementary “truths” about itself. This is not only about chasing the stigmatizing tendencies of a discourse typical of certain characters, but also about grasping the effects of this discourse on the female readers ; the dumb, fancied listeners to the tyrannical pedagogy of a writer who was both influenced by the stereotypes of his time and stirred by an original reformist spirit.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:58:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Simone Antonia Sanfelice.pdf: 1186799 bytes, checksum: 60f108986477581d72613abda8a3f84d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-29 / This research aims to investigate the presence of female reader characters within Machado de Assis tales narrative discourse, subject of very few critical studies. The corpus selected took into consideration the books read by the female reader characters and the interference of these readings in the narrative context. Through a detailed analysis based on 2008 Nova Aguilar Complete Works, we came to a selection of five tales, situated strategically on different phases of the author´s literary production: "O anjo das donzelas , Miss Dollar , D. Benedita , Capítulo dos chapéus and Missa do galo . We inquired in what way these female characters read and the extent in which the readings interfered their worldview. The hypothesis pointed different perspectives taken by the narrator in his ambivalent attitude of critical confirmation and denial, through irony, of the female reader characters pattern of reading. The theoretical references in this study were Wolfgang Iser and Wayne Booth, linked to the interaction between text and reader and to the discursive strategies of the author and the narrator in the story. The conclusion is that by means of gaps, potencies of denial and reversals in the narrative discourse, one can assure the way Machado de Assis projects to the actual reader, other interpretative possibilities. This contributes not only to a new female reader education, with critical capacity, but also to a woman with greater thinking and action autonomy, by the turn of the XIX to XX century, in Brazil / Esta pesquisa se propõe a investigar a presença das personagens leitoras no discurso narrativo dos contos machadianos, temática com poucos estudos críticos a respeito. O corpus selecionado levou em consideração tanto os livros lidos pelas personagens leitoras quanto a interferência dessas leituras no contexto da narrativa. Por meio de um minucioso levantamento feito a partir da edição de 2008, da Obra completa da Nova Aguilar, chegamos à seleção de cinco contos, estrategicamente situados em fases distintas da produção do autor: "O anjo das donzelas , Miss Dollar , D. Benedita , Capítulo dos chapéus e Missa do galo . Perguntávamos de que maneira essas personagens femininas liam e em que medida essas leituras interferiam na sua visão de mundo. A hipótese apontava para as diferentes perspectivas assumidas pelo narrador na sua atitude ambivalente de confirmação e de negação crítica, por meio da ironia, do padrão de leitura das personagens-leitoras. Os referenciais teóricos deste estudo foram os de Wolfgang Iser e os de Wayne Booth, vinculados à interação entre texto e leitor e às estratégias discursivas do autor e do narrador no relato. A conclusão foi a de que por meio dos vazios, das potências de negação e das inversões, presentes em menor ou maior grau no discurso narrativo, constata-se o modo como Machado de Assis projeta, para o leitor real, outras possibilidades interpretativas e, desta forma, contribui para a formação não só de uma nova leitora, com capacidade crítica, mas também de uma mulher com maior autonomia de pensamento e ação, na passagem do século XIX ao XX, no Brasil