Orlando Lesson Plan

What do you make of Orlando's long sleep? Why do you think it happens? What element does it add to the novel?

Orlando's long sleep is the first very strange thing to happen in a novel that will become more and more fantastical. Orlando's sleep/trance seems to signify a switch in eras of his life--when he wakes up, he can barely remember his younger days with Sasha and the Great Frost, and instead becomes interested in creating a legacy for himself. The biographer asks if Orlando "died for a week, and then come back to life again?" which is a question to which we never learn the answer (68).

Why do you think language relating to illness is used to describe Orlando's...