AGENDA:
Read a summary of Mrs. Dalloway on your handout, Wikipedia, Shmoop or on Spark notes. Then answer the following questions: Post your answers on the blog.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dalloway/
http://www.shmoop.com/mrs-dalloway/
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?
Writing: Continue to work on your Motif Projects!
14. I would not say that The Hours is by any means, a simple modern version of Mrs. Dalloway but it obviously borrows somewhat heavily from the story and characters of the novel to tell its own story. They both involve women preparing to throw a party, a suicide to preserve one's own happiness, and people who loved each other but never married. And yet with all these similarities and more, the story that The Hours tells is very much it's own.
ReplyDelete15.At the core of each of the relationships, things are the same as the nature of the individual relationships is left much more to the original one's established by Virginia Woolf. Because of this it gives the appearance of the stories being much more different than they actually are. But the gender and sexuality twists do add a bit of flavor.
16. The name The Hours really puts emphasis on one of the main things that the story is supposed to be conveying in that a few hours can fundamentally change someone's lives. For Richard they are the hours where he contemplates suicide and says his final goodbyes, for Laura its the realization that she can never be happy with the life she has, and for Clarissa it's the realization that that you can't force people to keep living.
14) I wouldn't say that the hours is a modern Mrs. Dalloway, but they have similar things in both stories. In both of the stories they have the idea of a character throwing a party and some of the characters have the same name, but in the hours the genders are changed and so are some of the conflicts that they suffer from. They also share the motif of flowers and the idea of someone loving someone that they can't have. The hours and Mrs. Dalloway are relatively close stories, but they both tell completely different stories.
ReplyDelete15)The gender bending of the characters in the Hours changes the conflicts and troubles that each characters was supposed to encounter. The gender bending changes the plot of the story to make it much more suitable for the switching of the characters and also gives it is own twist. It gives the story a more relative approach and just adds to the plot of the story.
16) The tittle The Hours represents the outline of the story. the entire story takes place in only a few hours in one day, which makes the tittle seem much more suitable. It shows that you only need a few hours or minutes to have a dramatic change occur in one's life. The hours just gives a general outlook of the plot line of the story.
Olivia
ReplyDelete1. The Hours to Virginia Woolf's actual novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is a modern dialogue. It is commenting on the ideas presented in Mrs. Dalloway and applying them to three different settings. Both approach the constraints holding back women, whether in marriage, society or in outside relationships and the idea of "home." The characters in The Hours, however, are all going through different situations and are different people.
2. The gender bending has given the characters a different situation to be placed in in their linear stories. While the fundamentals of each relationship are the same, the gender twists provide a new approach to the character's inner traits, wants and needs.
16. The Hours is an appropriate title choice by Cunningham because the three women in the story feel as though they are all trapped in their own lives, and each day is just them counting down "the hours". To Richard, the hours reference how much of his life he has left. To Laura, they count down how long she has been and will be living her "perfect life". To Clarissa, she has lost control of her own hours and it is spinning her out of control.
14. The Hours, in relation to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, in my opinion is not a modern version. Th reason for this is that The Hours dives deeper into its characters and their minds. It is more complex with more characters. Mrs. Dalloway focuses on one character. Although both stories share similarities content wise, they are very different.
ReplyDelete15. The gender bending within characters helps to add complexity and depth to each characters life and situation. Clarissa and Richard both had other same sex lovers which complicated things for them and their personal relationships. Also, gender and sexuality was seen as almost an escape from reality for some characters. Laura Brown for example felt liberated when she kissed a woman. It was an escape from the problems of her 'real life'.
16. The Hours was chosen to symbolize the time passing in ones life. It referred to the time wasted being unhappy particularly. To Richard, the hours was the time he spent living in pain for Clarissa. To Laura, The Hours referred to the time she felt trapped in her white picket fence life.
14. The Hours, in relation to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, in my opinion is not a modern version. Th reason for this is that The Hours dives deeper into its characters and their minds. It is more complex with more characters. Mrs. Dalloway focuses on one character. Although both stories share similarities content wise, they are very different.
ReplyDelete15. The gender bending within characters helps to add complexity and depth to each characters life and situation. Clarissa and Richard both had other same sex lovers which complicated things for them and their personal relationships. Also, gender and sexuality was seen as almost an escape from reality for some characters. Laura Brown for example felt liberated when she kissed a woman. It was an escape from the problems of her 'real life'.
16. The Hours was chosen to symbolize the time passing in ones life. It referred to the time wasted being unhappy particularly. To Richard, the hours was the time he spent living in pain for Clarissa. To Laura, The Hours referred to the time she felt trapped in her white picket fence life.
14. The Hours is in some ways a modern retelling. Both tells the struggles of women in society and an undertone of sexual orientation. However, Mrs. Dalloway focuses on one person, The Hours focuses on three people and how each handles their struggles.
ReplyDelete15. Gender bending helps characterizes and complexes a character although the essential relationships are the same.
16. The Hours symbolizes one's time in life and how it's wasted due to characters being restrain of what they really desire in life.
14. I really don't think The Hours is a modern version of Mrs. Dalloway. The Hours show the struggles of three different women and what's holding them back also. Mrs. Dalloway only focuses on one character but both stories are kind of similar but different.
ReplyDelete15. The gender bending adds it's own twist to the story and also changed the plot. It made it seem like an escape from their real life for some of the characters.
16. The Hours was chosen as the title probably because all of the women in the story feel as if they're counting the days they have left and seem eager for it because they all feel hopeless and trapped in their own lives.
14. While Mrs. Dalloway is focused on one person, The Hours is focused on three people. They both have similarities in where the characters are going through their struggles with society.
ReplyDelete15. The gender-bending in the novel adds the struggles and depth into them. For example, Richard and Clarissa had lovers from the same sex but at the same time they loved each other and wouldn't let go from their previous relationship.
16. The Hours is an appropriate title for the novel because it described how the characters are trapped in their own lives, as in for Richard "The Hours" represented the time that he had left in pain.