Prone to pregnancy: Orlando, Virginia Woolf and Sally Potter represent the gestating body.
The visibility of pregnancy in contemporary societies through various forms of medical imaging has often been interpreted by feminist critics as negative for the autonomy and experience of pregnant women. Here, I consider the representation of pregnancy in Virginia Woolf's novel, Orlando, and Sally Potter's film of the same name arguing that, despite limited critical attention to Orlando's pregnancy, these texts offer a productive interpretation of gestation that counters conventionally reductive cultural images of that embodied state. In particular, I argue that Potter's translation of Woolf's novel to the screen gives us a useful model for thinking through the new visibility of pregnancy in contemporary Western culture.
Maher
Jane Maree
JM
Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia. janemaree.maher@arts.monash.edu.au
D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D019513:Feminism; D005783:Gender Identity; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D009040:Motion Pictures / Q000266:history*; D011247:Pregnancy; D037841:Pregnant People / Q000523:psychology*; D012737:Sex Factors; D019366:Western World