Begin a discussion by posting a response to one of the questions below. This will count for a quiz/participation grade.
1. Cunningham’s novel is full of juicy themes: love, fame, art, and insanity are just a few. Start a commentary on one of them.
2. Discuss some of the leitmotifs Cunningham uses in the novel. Flowers, mirrors,
reading, cooking, etc.
3. Comment on this discussion question:
What does the novel have to say about the relationship of art to madness? Can the brand of “insanity” that the mentally unbalanced characters experience instead be called a heightened state of awareness, a strengthened ability to see something that is invisible to others?
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11 comments:
1. Love seems to be the central theme of this book. No one character has only one person they love--they all have several, and there are a lot of love triangles. We find Laura Brown loving her son, husband, and Kitty. We know that Viriginia Woolf had several lovers (women lovers) along with her beloved husband. We know that Clarissa loves Richard and Sally, hopelessly. Everyone loves everyone! Every character in this book is feeling romantically confused and inspired, changing relationships constantly. It can easily be said that love is one of the central themes of this novel, and is the basis upon which it stands. This is ultimiately true of everything, though, so Michael Cunningham is only emulating different aspects of life that we can all relate to. And it works very well.
Fame: The theme fame is often used through the novel.It funny how one of the main characters (Clarissa) doesn't care about the fame life but often obsess about actors and actresses, who they are and who they act. She also obsessed about the fact that Oliver (an actor)didn't invite her to lunch but invited sally. And how Richard is recieving an award which will make him famous. he believes that he is only getting the award because he is sick with aids.
2. I understand the mirrors leitmotif in that the three women's lives are mirrored by the other's (and Mrs. Dalloway, damn these stupid parentheses) and I understand the reading because Virginia Woolf is a writer and Mrs. Dalloway is a character in her book but I don't understand the flowers. Maybe it's because I'm only at the beginning of chapter three but the flowers just don't seem to bear any significance yet. Yes, it's interesting that Clarissa said the exact same thing to Sally as Mrs. Dalloway said to Sally in the novel but other than that I don't understand it. I should probably keep this in mind as the novel progresses.
Discussion question #1: In the Hours, Michael Cunningham explores the theme of love. So far from what I picked up there is a great deal of homosexuality. Like Clarissa and Sally are a lesbian couple, but there is something between the two of them that I just haven't grasped yet. It feels like there is some sort of tension there that hasn't been fiddled with. Sally seems content but there is something a bit off about Clarissa. She is unhappy but instead of dealing with whatever it is that's holding her back from living a happy life and a pleasant relationship, she continually turns her attention towards the party. She doesn't seem like the type that faces her troubles. She avoids everything unpleasant and I have a feeling that sooner or later they are all gonna come out all at once.
2. The motif of mirrors in the novel stresses the concern that the three women hold for how they appear to others. This motif is especially relevant in te terms of Laura Brown's story. Laura is consistenly working to mold herself into the model of a clean, orderly suburban housewife. When Kitty comes to the door, Laura hesistates to even open it simply because her hair is not put up and she is still in her bathrobe. She does not want to appear less than in control of her appearance, her home, her state of happiness. A similar event occurs when Virginia's sister Vanessa makes an early call to the house. Virginia had hoped to appear somewhat healthy and put togther, or at least to have changed her dress and fixed her hair. As she goes out to meet her sister she avoids her relfection. She, like Laura, does not want see herself as inadequate, not in control of her life. The mirror motif also appears in Clarissa's story.
I think that craziness comes along with the art. Magaret Atwood was mentally unstable when she killed herself, and the thing is she put her feeling and herself in her stories. All writers do that , subconsiously or consciously, leave a little bit of themselves behind in their work. Richard and Laura were the same way, they both were battling something inside them. Atwood and Richard both had something with birds, and Atwood heard whispering. I think thatit's possible to get so wrapped up, engrossed in your work that you can go crazy. That you alienate yourself from the world. It's just the matter if you can untangle yourdelf before you go too far. Everyone I think reveals their subconacious thoughts in their writing, crazy or not.
One of the most obvious motifs used in The Hours were the chapter sequences in which all of the women came in contact with yellow flowers. By using these motifs, Cunningham is stringing the stories together, making them interconnected in a more subconscious way. It is worth noting that the most prominent motifs are objects that symbolize domesticity and femininity. This choice helps to reinforce the theme of dissatisfaction with the "typical" duties of women. All three characters, Clarissa, Virginia, and Laura, are, whether they know it or not, unhappy with their status in the world. Even Virginia, the most liberated of the three women, still harbors feelings of dissatisfaction and insecurity. More to the point, however, this use of motif is a particularly successful device that reveals parallelism in even the most seemingly trivial of ways.
In the novel, flowers seem to be particularly representational of life itself. Each woman is struggling to fit into her own life. For Virginia Woolf, flowers (shown at the funeral of the dead bird) represent the serenity in death. Clarissa uses flowers to artificially brighten her own apartment as well as Richards -- they are almost used as a means of hiding her own sadness surrounding her lost relationship with Richard. When Laura's husband gives her flowers -- roses -- on his birthday, she feels more obligated to be happy as his wife and as a mother to his children. The roses are a means of guilt and frustration -- they represent a life that Laura does not want to lead.
William Keller
1. Love is something that is constantly returning in in The Hours. Cunningham implies that it isn't something that you can really control, you can't choose who you love, it's something that happens on it's own. Clarissa loves Richard, but she doesn't really want to. She'd much rather love Sally it seems, but because of Richard she just can't. Similar things also seem apparent with Laura and Woolf.
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3. The novel impies that to be artistic, you must also be insane, which through history has proven somewhat true with the number or "insane" artists or ones that have killed themselves.
1. Love is a powerful theme in The Hours. Its seems like Love keeps coming back and forth, back and forth throughout the movie and the book. The love triangle within Clarissa Vaughan story is very interesting.Clarissa loves Richard and as she loves him she's going out with Sally. At the same time Richard's former lover Louis walks into the picture again. In a scene there's a powerful discussion between Louis and Clarissa about their love for Richard. In the second story Laura Brown is battling with love and a perfect family with her son(Richard). Laura Laura feels as though this too much for her and that she should kill herself. What she doesn't know is that her son loves her and if she kills herself it will effect him too. Virgina Woolf battles with love by writing a book called Mrs. Dalloway. Writing is her love, but she doesn't love her husband as much as her writing. Also she's having plenty of affairs with other women.
Insanity plays a big part through out the book and like Keonia said,"It comes along with the Art" and the insanity was mirrored in every character. The novel descibes the the insanity as a sort of path way to creating beauty. For example Virgina's "unbalanced mental state" led to amazing works of Art that later influenced many such as Richard to do the same. Insanity in my opinion let's a person wander off into another world and see things differently and to experience things that "normal" people wouldn't ever dream of seeing or hearing in a different way. So in some ways being insane isn't all terrible. In some ways it sounds appealing.
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