Work on, finish and turn in all missing work and NON-LINEAR STORIES!
Continue to read The Hours, look over the handout on The Hours, look at links to Michael Cunningham and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.
POST AN ANSWER TO QUESTIONS 1 and 2 (see questions below) for class participation credit today!
Your next assignment will be to write in a genre you are most comfortable with (poetry, fiction or drama). The work needs two historical time periods and needs to weave in motifs in both time periods
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What are some common motifs? Go to these websites:
http://literaryterms.net/motif/
http://study.com/academy/lesson/motif-in-literature-definition-examples-quiz.html
http://softschools.com/examples/literary_terms/motif_examples/297/
http://literary-devices.com/content/motif
Think about the motifs evident in The Hours. You might want to use some of them.
Here are the discussion questions you will be working with next week:
1. Clarissa Vaughan is described several times as an "ordinary" woman. Do you accept this valuation? If so, what does it imply about the ordinary, about being ordinary? What makes someone, by contrast, extraordinary?
2. Flowers and floral imagery play a significant part in The Hours. When and where are flowers described? What significance do they have, and with what events and moods are they associated? How do flowers affect Virginia? Clarissa?
3. Cunningham plays with the notions of sanity and insanity, recognizing that there might be only a very fine line between the two states. What does the novel imply about the nature of insanity? Might it in fact be a heightened sanity, or at least a heightened sense of awareness? Would you classify Richard as insane? How does his mental state compare with that of Virginia? Of Laura as a young wife? Of Septimus Smith in Mrs. Dalloway? Does insanity (or the received idea of insanity) appear to be connected with creative gifts?
4. Virginia and Laura are both, in a sense, prisoners of their eras and societies, and both long for freedom from this imprisonment. Clarissa Vaughan, on the other hand, apparently enjoys every liberty: freedom to be a lesbian, to come and go and live as she likes. Yet she has ended up, in spite of her unusual way of life, as a fairly conventional wife and mother. What might this fact indicate about the nature of society and the restrictions it imposes? Does the author imply that character, to a certain extent, is destiny?
5. Each of the novel’s three principal women, even the relatively prosaic and down-to-earth Clarissa, occasionally feels a sense of detachment, of playing a role. Laura feels as if she is "about to go onstage and perform in a play for which she is not appropriately dressed, and for which she has not adequately rehearsed" [p. 43]. Clarissa is filled with "a sense of dislocation. This is not her kitchen at all. This is the kitchen of an acquaintance, pretty enough but not her taste, full of foreign smells" [p. 91]. Is this feeling in fact a universal one? Is role-playing an essential part of living in the world, and of behaving "sanely"? Which of the characters refuses to act a role, and what price does he/she pay for this refusal?
6. Who kisses whom in The Hours, and what is the significance of each kiss?
7. The Hours is very much concerned with creativity and the nature of the creative act, and each of its protagonists is absorbed in a particular act of creation. For Virginia and Richard, the object is their writing; for Clarissa Vaughan (and Clarissa Dalloway), it is a party; for Laura Brown, it is another party, or, more generally, "This kitchen, this birthday cake, this conversation. This revived world" [p. 106]. What does the novel tell us about the creative process? How does each character revise and improve his or her creation during the course of the story?
8. How might Richard’s childhood experiences have made him the adult he eventually becomes? In what ways has he been wounded, disturbed?
9. Each of the three principal women is acutely conscious of her inner self or soul, slightly separate from the "self" seen by the world. Clarissa’s "determined, abiding fascination is what she thinks of as her soul" [p. 12]; Virginia "can feel it inside her, an all but indescribable second self, or rather a parallel, purer self. If she were religious, she would call it the soul . . . It is an inner faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world because it is made of the same substance" [pp. 34-35]. Which characters keep these inner selves ruthlessly separate from their outer ones? Why?
10. Each of the novel’s characters sees himself or herself, most of the time, as a failure. Virginia Woolf, as she walks to her death, reflects that "She herself has failed. She is not a writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric" [p. 4]. Richard, disgustedly, admits to Clarissa, "I thought I was a genius. I actually used that word, privately, to myself" [p. 65]. Are the novel’s characters unusual, or are such feelings of failure an essential and inevitable part of the human condition?
11. Toward the end of Clarissa’s day, she realizes that kissing Richard beside the pond in Wellfleet was the high point, the culmination, of her life. Richard, apparently, feels the same. Are we meant to think, though, that their lives would have been better, more heightened, had they stayed together? Or does Cunningham imply that as we age we inevitably feel regret for some lost chance, and that what we in fact regret is youth itself?
12. The Hours could on one level be said to be a novel about middle age, the final relinquishment of youth and the youthful self. What does middle age mean to these characters? In what essential ways do these middle-aged people--Clarissa, Richard, Louis, Virginia --differ from their youthful selves? Which of them resists the change most strenuously?
13. What does the possibility of death represent to the various characters? Which of them loves the idea of death, as others love life? What makes some of the characters decide to die, others to live? What personality traits separate the "survivors" from the suicides?
14. If you have read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, would you describe The Hours as a modern version of it? A commentary upon it? A dialogue with it? Which characters in The Hours correspond with those of Woolf’s novel? In what ways are they similar, and at what point do the similarities cease and the characters become freestanding individuals in their own right?
15. For the most part, the characters in The Hours have either a different gender or a different sexual orientation from their prototypes in Mrs. Dalloway. How much has all this gender-bending affected or changed the situations, the relationships, and the people?
16. Why has Cunningham chosen The Hours for the title of his novel (aside from the fact that it was Woolf’s working title for Mrs. Dalloway)? In what ways is the title appropriate, descriptive? What do hours mean to Richard? To Laura? To Clarissa?
Olivia
ReplyDelete1. Clarissa Vaughn, is, to an outside perspective, probably the not the most ordinary woman in the novel. From an outside perspective, that role would go to Laura Brown. However, Clarissa is living in moderns times. And more of her story line focuses on her affect on and by other people, rather than her own inner thoughts and feelings and sense of deprivation. She is ordinary because she is a woman living in the modern world experiencing some of the same tragedies and successes in one day that someone today might experience. She is the most relatable character in the novel.
2. Flowers appear in the first chapter of each character. Clarissa goes to a flower shop to buy flowers for Richard. Laura finds flowers that her husband has bought for her on the table. As Virginia Woolf is walking to the river to commit suicide, she sees flowers. A flower is usually classified as a very feminine object. It is very delicate, but also very pristine and beautiful. It doesn't take much to kill a flower. The flowers that the three women see or have in their life on this day are a metaphor for their own fragility.
1. Clarissa Vaughn, in a sense, is an ordinary woman in that she lives in the past. She thrives off of the memories she had with Richard when she was 18. This makes her ordinary in a way, because most women have that 'what if' person and they are nostalgic to the way certain relationships were.
ReplyDelete2. Flowers are a prevalent motif in The Hours. Clarissa is getting flowers for a party that she is planning for Richard. She is familiar to the florist suggesting that she goes there often. Laura also has flowers when she wakes up to her husbands birthday and he bought her flowers. Finally, Virginia implements flowers in her books a lot. The flowers to Clarissa mean something positive; she sees them as a good thing that brightens up rooms, moods, lives. Laura sees the flowers as almost a reminder of her guilt. When she sees the flowers on the day of Dan's birthday, she feels guilty for the feelings she'd been having because he is good to her. Overall, flowers mean different things to each woman.
Jasmina and Jahde
Delete1. Clarissa Vaughn is an ordinary woman but she tends to reminisce about the memories when she was 18 and her relationship with Richard way too much. But that makes her ordinary because sometimes people want to remember old times/past relationships.
ReplyDelete2.Flowers are literally in the first chapter for every character. Clarissa goes to the flower shop to buy flowers for Richard, Laura stumbles upon flowers that her husband bought for her. Virginia Woolf has flowers in her books a lot and she sees flowers as she is walking to the river to commit suicide. A flower is often seen as beautiful but fragile, so the flowers that they see are a symbol for how fragile they are or they just mean different things to the women.
1. Clarissa Vaughn is an ordinary woman as she thinks of the moments with her husband Richard when she was 18 years old. She's ordinary because like most women, they have these moments of "what ifs" and they are sentimental towards the way certain people's relationships are.
ReplyDelete2. Flowers are a frequent motif in the story. Clarissa is getting flowers for Richard and often goes to the florists. Laura is given flowers by her husband when she wakes up to her husbands birthday. Lastly, Woolf implements flowers in her books and when also when she commits suicide, she sees flowers.Flowers are metaphors for the women's fragility and what each women see in their lives.
Amanda
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1) Clarissa Vaughn could be considered the most "ordinary" women in the story because of the time that she is actually living in. Clarissa is living in a modern time compared to the other characters in the book and she goes through things that people in the world today could actually go through.
ReplyDelete2)Flowers are seen in all three characters in the first chapter. Laura finds flowers that her husband has given her, Clarissa goes to buy flowers for Richard and as Woolf is walking to commit suicide she sees flowers as well. Flowers are feminine and fragile things, with each character having seen flowers in the first chapter it could suggest that all of these characters resemble a flower in someway
1.Clarrisa is a eighteen year old women who basically lives off of memories. This makes her normal because most people dwell on the past if that memory has some sort of good meaning towards that person.
ReplyDelete2.Clarrissa seems to have flowers in this novel on many accessions; for the party she is planning and for her husband on his birthday. A flower can imply a lot and mean a lot for a women. They sometimes generally give warm and happiness to a women. The flowers that Clarissa spot as she is about to committee suicide can imply happiness for dealing with her guilt or a consequence of her guilt.
Clarissa is NOT 18!
DeleteRosalia & Aslin
ReplyDelete1. Clarissa Vaughn is a ordinary women and she tends to always think of the past when she was 18 years old. She is just like most women who dwell on the past and always think about a "what if"
2. Flowers are the literary element in the first chapter. Clarissa goes and gets flowers from the flower shop. She goes to get them for her husband Richard. While Richard goes to the flower shop many times. Laura gives her husband flowers on his birthday. After, Woolf implements flowers in her books also when she committed suicide she sees flowers. Flowers are metaphors for the women's fragility and what each women see in their lives.
1) Clarissa might be considered ordinary because normal people can relate to her and the things she faces throughout the story. she is also living in modern times as opposed to back in the day type problems
ReplyDelete2) Flowers show up in each of the characters’ first chapter. Flowers show up a lot in this book in subtle times like when Laura is going to the river to commit suicide. Clarissa also has flowers. Flowers are more a feminine thing that suggest delicacy like these women.
1) clarissa is said to be the most ordinary person in the story because she is going through situations in modern time as to where the other characters are in a different time period so the can not relate.
ReplyDelete2) flowers seem to be the image of every character as we see it pops up in the beginning of every segment, Woolf sees flowers while she is committing suicide , Clarissa gets flowers from the floral shop and Laura gives her husband flows to celebrate his birthday, imagery can tell a story.