Antonios Karantininis
3.X Aurehoej Gymnasium
20/10/2015
Comparative Essay of The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway

“There are still the flowers to buy”, are the first words uttered by two different “Clarissas”. The first time was in Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway”, the second time in Cunningham’s novel “the Hours. Subsequently Clarissa rushes into the city to buy the flowers herself. There are many more ways in which Cunningham induces the aura of Woolf’s novel; however, the main similarity, which can be seen, is the stream of consciousness form of narrative, which encompasses the length of one day. With this opening scene being repeated in both novels we see our “Clarissas” plunge into the city to buy flowers. Virginia Woolf is known for being a modernist novelist in the same way that Michael Cunningham is known for his postmodern writing.

If you have read Mrs. Woolf’s novel you are immediately meant with a striking de ja vu, in the opening scenes of “the Hours”, only to be meat with a striking difference: The Hours is based around the lives of three different women, in comparison to Mrs. Woolf’s novel. One can argue that the story of Virginia in “the Hours” is a retelling of Mrs. Woolf’s writing process, while the story of Laura is an example of the reception of Mrs. Woolf’s novel, and the Clarrissa is a modernised retelling of Mrs. Dalloway’s day. This addition augments the novel, because it focuses the reader’s response on several aspects of the novel.

Mrs. Dalloway’s perfect party is what the whole novel focuses on when it was written by Woolf, however by dissecting the novel and removing the party Cunningham adds a completely new twist to the story and instead adds new points that have arisen in “our time”. He does this through retelling the story and focusing on New York in the late 20th century, and even adds another layer by showing us Los Angeles in 1949. This adds new thoughts and new points that come up when he compares these American cities to London, in other eras than the 1920s

Using a very modernist style, Cunningham pulls the reader’s attention away from the plot, and focuses more on the book in front of them. He does this by focusing on the creation of the novel by Woolf. The reader then begins to rethink the status of Mrs. Dalloway as a novel from another time, and which makes it into a novel of current interest. Cunningham invites the readers of the Hours to draw connections between the characters he has evoked and the character Woolf herself created, inducing new perceptions of both novels, and influencing our perceptions of the different eras he mentions in his book.
Because of the way, Cunningham recycles Woolf’s characters and writing style one can easily argue that The Hours is a pastiche to Mrs Dalloway, as he has taken many elements from Woolf’s novel without copying them directly. As I mentioned previously he makes connections between the characters but he even constructs new connections between the very elements of the novel, contrasting the colours, which can be seen in the movie interpretation of his novel. In doing this, he creates new paths of exploration of both the novel and the very characters inside of Mrs. Dalloway. On many levels, “The Hours” is a faithful imitation; however, the pastiche he uses is subconscious. He deconstructs and reconstructs the functions of the characters, and even creates a new understanding of the novel he has based his writing on.

There is continuity between the two novels, which can be seen in the way Cunningham encourages us to read Woolf’s novel. He reuses her stream of consciousness narrative of a single day and renews the idea behind it. Instead of focusing on the goal of the novel, he focuses on the interaction between the novel and the characters, and the discourse between the characters themselves. He renovates Woolf’s novel but also shows us the possible situations, which she did not elaborate on when she wrote it, thereby underlining her point of view through the differences between the two works. The differences within the two works cannot only be attributed to only this, as they are both written in different eras, and the difference in attitudes and events surrounding the writing of the novels can attribute to these differences and interpretations. It almost seems as if Cunningham is attempting to elaborate on Woolf’s novel; welcoming readers who have and have not read the novel, and beckoning them to read or reread her novel with a renewed view.

Through the reading of these to excerpts from the two novel, and through the viewing of the film, one can argue against the idea of postmodernism setting itself against modernism only to be different in order to be different, which is a common perception. Through the analysis of these two novels, I would like to argue that postmodernism does not use modernism as a negative point of departure, but through the joint abhorrence of reality and the values of society, I would say that it uses it as a positive point of departure. Both modernism and postmodernism share characteristics, in their representation of the world, seen through the literary periods, which can be seen through them, and unite them.