During the Modernity period, society transitioned into a progressive way of thinking, characterised with an Avant-garde approach to literature and the arts. While artistic approaches were transformed, civilization remained confined by the societal constraints brought about by the introduction of modernity. Virginia Woolf’s enlightened and controversial Mrs Dalloway interweaves the lives and stories of three multifocal narrators lost in life and time in Stephan Daldry’s The Hours. Both texts leave their characters succumbing to their opulent internal self becoming constrained by the contexts, which surround them, forced to battle or surrender to gender restrictions and the insusceptibility of mental deterioration. Link to the question.
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While Mrs Dalloway focuses on the lack of feminist individuality and societal constraints, Laura Brown struggles to bake a “ridiculously easy” cake, in the hours, emphasising the pressures surrounding her inability to uphold the perceived normalities of modern wifehood. This conjures a sort of frustration, relating Brown to Mrs Dalloway the same text she reads in the film, stating, “maybe because she’s confident everybody thinks she’s fine”. This demonstrates that Laura, like Mrs Dalloway, employs her potent facade to conceal her inner emotions, allowing the successful maintenance of the charade of 1950s housewife. Laura’s inability to forsake her house-life despite her internal adamancy embodies the allegorical and literal struggles of both Clarissa Dalloway and the author Virginia Woolf, in escaping social conformity, as contextually women were obligated to prize their reputation rather than individuality. Mrs Dalloway’s postmodern parallel Clarissa Vaughn embodies the prospects of life Clarissa Dalloway idealises in the nostalgic Bourton. Emancipated, working and socially accepted lesbian, Clarissa continues “throwing parties to cover the silence” interlacing her motives with not only Mrs Dalloway but also her cinematic counterpart Laura brown, using the role of social organiser as camouflage for the …show more content…
Septimus Warren Smith stands as the embodiment of the mental health struggle of modernity. Suffering from a severe case of shellshock, Septimus like the author Virginia Woolf becomes prisoner to the modern medicalisation of society, forced to repress his “madness” to the confines of his own mentality.
Struggling to come to grips with the void state of humanity, Septimus develops a reluctance to conform to the authoritarian approaches of his doctors, “Sir William … never spoke of madness instead he called it a sense of proportion” solidifying society forceful conformity, refusing to acknowledge the presence of madness rather referring to it as a choice. Since, “once you fall human nature is on you… Holmes and Bradshaw are one you”, losing control of the mind and succumbing to mental illness permits life to trample over individuality, forcing isolation, separation and weakness. Septimus’ death metaphorically salvages his individuality, deciding to escape the terrors of living. The echo of lines from Shakespeare Cymbeline “Fear no more the heat ’o the sun / nor the furious winter’s rages” personifies the passions and desires of Septimus to escape his internal prison, seeing the definitive end as an enticing consolation to the horrors of society.
“Story of an Hour”, written by Kate Chopin presents a woman of the nineteenth century who is held back by societal constraints. The character, Louise Mallard, is left to believe that her husband has passed away. She quickly falls into a whirlwind of emotions as she sinks into her chair. Soon a sense of freedom overwhelms her body as she looks through the window of opportunity and times to come. She watches the world around her home run free as nature runs its course. Louise watches the blue sky as a rush of “monstrous joy” shoots through her veins (Chopin). She experiences a new sense of freedom. Although she sometimes loved her husband, his “death” breaks the chain that keeps her from experiencing a truly free life. Thoughts over times to
Both Vanity Fair and A Room of One’s Own explore and challenge the idea that women are incapable of creating a name and a living for themselves, thus are completely dependent on a masculine figure to provide meaning and purpose to their lives. Thackeray, having published Vanity Fair in 1848, conforms to the widely accepted idea that women lack independence when he makes a note on Ms Pinkerton and remarks “the Lexicographer’s name was always on the lips of the majestic woman… [He] was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.” The way that a man’s name was metaphorically “always on the lips of the majestic woman” and how he was the source of “her reputation and her fortune” expresses this idea, especially through Thackeray’s skilful use of a sanguine tone to communicate that this cultural value, or rather inequality, was not thought of as out of the ordinary. From viewing this in a current light and modernised perspective...
She presents two contradictory images of society in most of her fiction: one in which the power and prevalence of evil seem so deeply embedded that only destruction may root it out, and another in which the community or even an aggregate of individuals, though radically flawed, may discover within itself the potential for regeneration. (34)
In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway undergoes an internal struggle between her love for society and life and a combined affinity for and fear of death. Her practical marriage to Richard serves its purpose of providing her with an involved social life of gatherings and parties that others may find frivolous but Clarissa sees as “an offering” to the life she loves so well. Throughout the novel she grapples with the prospect of growing old and approaching death, which after the joys of her life seems “unbelievable… that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant…” At the same time, she is drawn to the very idea of dying, a theme which is most obviously exposed through her reaction to the news of Septimus Smith’s suicide. However, this crucial scene r...
The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.
The Hours then introduces us to three women from three different decades, and their relationships with others, tied together by a common thread--Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway is about one day in the life of its namesake, Clarissa Dalloway, as she prepares for a dinner party. "She is a woman who, on the outside, is a perfect...
Modernism was the word of the era because it was the opposite of the last. People pined for new and exciting ways to make up for time lost to the war. This feeling of looking ahead through the ambiguity of the time permeated through all tiers of society from the working class to the elites. In Judith Walkowitz’s “A Jewish Night Out,” we find a dance hall catering to Jewish youth. One can rent a dance partner and learn how to dance well. It was suddenly important to be able to charm the opposite sex in talent, attitude, and appearance because sex wasn’t just for procreation anymore. Deborah Cohen’s Household Gods, she gives a look into architecture and material things. There’s a clear clash between the older and younger generations, and the younger ones enjoy modernism. “Advocates of the modern insisted that the new era required a new style. They deplored the vogue for reproductions, which, in the psychological language of the day, they analysed as evidence of an ‘inferiority complex’.” As well, stream of consciousness writing emerges from the depths of collegiate, middle class bohemia. The Bloomsburry Group were named after the London neighborhood they inhabited and were an artist collective, living life according to art and the new fragmentation of life after war. Virginia Woolf’s writing reflects the general feeling of the interwar period: confusing, ambiguous, hopeful, and moral-less. The Bohemians took the disassociation of the era and put it into new and modern art. All of these cultural ideas and forms of recreation were a result of the Great War because there was a generation of young people who were lost and needed a future meaningful to them, so they created
We expect those endowed with a gift - be it artistic, intellectual or circumstantial - to cultivate that gift and use it as a vehicle for excellence in life. In the movie The Hours Virginia Woolf, the 20th Century British author; Laura Brown, a doted-upon 1951 Los Angeles housewife; and Clarissa Vaughan, a 2001 New York editor; struggle with their gifts and the expectations they, and others, have for themselves. All three women are obsessed with finding the right balance between living, freedom, happiness and love.
In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.
In Cunningham’s The Hours, Virginia Woolf and Laura Brown both suffer depression. In today’s society doctors are able to properly diagnose and treat many forms of depression, one of which Virginia suffers from. Virginia shows little interest in eating and goes as far as to lie to her husband, Leonard about eating breakfast. When Leonard calls her on her lie, Virginia simply tells him, “I’m having coffee with cream for breakfast. It’s enough” (Cunningham, 33). Virginia also has very low self esteem, refusing to look into the mirrors while getting ready in the morning feeling as if, “The mirror is dangerous; it sometimes shows her the dark manifestation of air that matches her body, takes her form, but stands behind, watching her, with porcine eyes and wet, hushed breathing” (31). Even though Virginia recognizes that there is something slightly off about her behavior she continues to hide it from her friends and family, just like Laura Brown hides her depression from her son, Richie and her husband, Dan.
Virginia Woolf’s first description of Septimus Smith immediately gives the reader the sense that Septimus is not mentally well. “Septimus Warren Smith, aged about thirty, pale-faced, beak-nosed, wearing brown shoes and a shabby overcoat, with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?” (Woolf 14) The final sentence in this passage adds significance to the description of Septimus’s apprehensive look. Septimus is completely convinced that the world is ultimate evil and that it is out to get him. This is a prime example of fearing that people are hostile and plotting to destroy him which is a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia.
Clarissa Dalloway and Peter Walsh are defined by their memories. Virginia Woolf creates their characters through the memories they share, and indeed fabricates their very identities from these mutual experiences. Mrs. Dalloway creates a unique tapestry of time and memory, interweaving past and present, memory and dream. The past is the key to the future, and indeed for these two characters the past creates the future, shaping them into the people they are on the June day described by Woolf. Peter and Clarissa’s memories of the days spent at Bourton have a profound effect on them both and are still very much a part of them. These images of their younger selves are not broad, all-encompassing mental pictures, but rather the bits and pieces of life that create personality and identity. Peter remembers various idiosyncracies about Clarissa, and she does the same about him. They remember each other by “the colours, salts, tones of existence,” the very essence that makes human beings original and unique: the fabric of their true identities (30).
The extensive descriptions of Mrs. Dalloway’s inner thoughts and observations reveals Woolf’s “stream of consciousness” writing style, which emphasizes the complexity of Clarissa’s existential crisis. She also alludes to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, further revealing her preoccupation with death as she quotes lines from a funeral song. She reads these lines while shopping in the commotion and joy of the streets of London, which juxtaposes with her internal conflicts regarding death. Shakespeare, a motif in the book, represents hope and solace for Mrs. Dalloway, as his lines form Cymbeline talk about the comforts found in death. From the beginning of the book, Mrs. Dalloway has shown a fear for death and experiences multiple existential crises, so her connection with Shakespeare is her way of dealing with the horrors of death. The multiple layers to this passage, including the irony, juxtaposition, and allusion, reveal Woolf’s complex writing style, which demonstrates that death is constantly present in people’s minds, affecting their everyday
In conclusion, David Lodge managed to embody the concrete term of feminism. Through the character of Robyn Penrose, he creates the breakup of the traditional Victorian image of woman.“ `There are lots of things I wouldn 't do. I wouldn 't work in a factory. I wouldn 't work in a bank. I wouldn 't be a housewife. When I think of most people 's lives, especially women 's lives, I don 't know how they bear it. ' `Someone has to do those jobs, ' said Vic. `That 's what 's so depressing. ' ”(Lodge
In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard has a heart trouble. People think she will have a heart attack if they just tell her the truth. But after they tell her that her husband is dead, she unlike many women that with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance, she just weeps once and goes back to her own room and locks the door. But after she meditates for a while, she realizes that the death of her husband can bring her freedom. And a monstrous joy appears, she knew that there would be no powerful will bending her and she could be free no matter in body and in soul. Kate Chopin wanted to show us a long term marriage can “kill” the romance. For example, in “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. and Mr. Mallard loved each other before they married. But after their marriage, Mrs. Mallard didn’t love Mr. Mallard anymore, maybe sometimes she did. But in most of the time, their marriage became a trap of Mrs. Mallard. She thought she lived for her husband but not herself in this marriage and she was young, with a hair and calm face before they were married, after his death, she can live for herself, this is the “freedom” that Mrs. Mallard thought of.