Transcript The Hours by Michael Cunningham

The Hours
by Michael Cunningham
"To look life in the faith, always, to
look life in the faith, and to know it for
what it is. At last to know it, to love it,
for what it is, and then, to put it away."
- Virginia Woolf in The Hours
Presented by Eva, Emily & Brian
Michael Cunningham



born in Cincinatti, Ohio, on
November 6th, 1952
receive his B.A. in English
literature from Stanford
University, and his M.F.A.
from the University of Iowa
other works:
*White Angel
*Specimen Days
*Flesh and Blood
*A Home at the End of the
World
Introduction

Virginia Woolf tries to
decide whether to have
her character, Clarissa
Dalloway, kill herself at the
end of her book. Virginia
eventually ends her own
life, so her deliberations
about Clarissa partly
reflect her own personal
struggle with the idea of
suicide.

Laura Brown feels trapped by the constraints
of her role as a suburban housewife and sees
suicide as a possible escape.

Clarissa Vaughn
dwells on the
difference between
her current life and
the summer she
spent in Wellfleet
with her lover,
Richard, at age
eighteen.
Comparison between
the movie and the novel
In the novel, Laura is portrayed as
having dark hair and eyes. (slightly
exotic looking)
 Laura is 4 years older than her
husband, and she feels somewhat
ashamed by this.
 Laura’s family (her parents) failed to
prosper in the US.

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Laura kisses her neighbor;
is Laura a lesbian?
Laura is portrayed as being very
confused about herself and her
emotions. She keeps telling
herself that she should not resent
her husband or child. She is
confused as to why she feels
otherwise.


Richard is a very sensitive boy and could feel his
mother’s depression and perhaps
desperation for something
more. In the novel he is
only three, but in the movie
he seems to be about eight.
Even if the book follows the lives of each woman
in jumpy scenes, they are still quite specifically
notated, which adds to the understanding of the
novel.
Imagery in The Hours

Water
Suicides is connected by
water imagery and descents
and books are always
evident.

The Dead Bird
The bird represents death
and Woolf feels close to
death at the moment,
unable to fly and stifled by
depression.
Imagery in “The Hours”

Flowers
The roses, in that they
speak both of life and
death in their ephemeral
beauty, are one of the
most eloquent and mostoft repeated visual
symbols of the film.

Kisses
The kisses were the
symbol of an attempt
and an outlet to look
for love, vitality and
life.
Stream of Consciousness
in The Hours
Stream of consciousness

It's a style of writing began at the early 20th
century to express in words the flow of a
character's thoughts and feelings and
being inside the mind of the character.

The words often come together exactly how
they do in the character or the authors’ head,
they jump freely with no sense of time,
space, or order.
Stream of Consciousness
in The Hours

It was made by three women’s completely separate stories
taking place in different time periods. And these three
stories were unexpectedly connected by the works of
Virginia Woolf “ Mrs. Dalloway”.

The story is not told one at a time, but rather flashes back
and forth between the three women and shows you exactly
how they are linked.

Each of the three principal women is acutely conscious of
her inner self or soul, slightly separate from the "self" seen
by the world. For examples, contemplating suicide,
unhappiness in a marriage, living with mental illness, and
feelings of failure and so on.
Conclusion

ContrastLeonard & Virginia vs Clarissa & Richard
Children vs Adult

Who’s sufferingVirginia & Richard or Leonard & Clarissa

Death & LifePains! Men’s or Women’s responsibility?
Freedom!
Websites

The author and his works
<http://literati.net/Cunningham/>.
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Questions for discussion
<http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/hours.asp>.
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comments on the film (Chinese)
<http://www.gendereq.kmu.edu.tw/phorum/read.php?f=9&i=
137&t=5>.