fear of Death
Death plays a large role in both books. The characters love life and fear death and its unknowns. Death haunts Septimus as he battles with hallucinations of his friend Evans, who was killed in action, constantly trying to make him get away because both he and others of "the dead were with him" (93). Clarissa becomes depressingly suddenly aware of death at her party, "in the middle of my party, here's death" (183), when news of Septimus' suicide reaches her when his doctor, Sir William Bradshaw, arrives. Clarissa though seems to decode Septimus' suicide as an "attempt to communicate." She sees death as "defiance" and that there's an "embrace in death" (184). This fear seems to make life, even the most mundane of events, more meaningful. Septimus' death helps her to come to terms with the likelihood of her own imminent death.
Clarissa Vaughan struggles with the same types of feelings and Richard's death has a very similar effect on her. She seems to dislike the fact nothing she says sounds appropriate and is distressed that "already someone who's died is reassessed as a respectable citizen, doer of good deeds, a wonderful man" (221). She finds that death causes people to lie about or hide the truth. She doesn't like death because it changes things, and makes the truth harder to get at.
Woolf and Cunningham have very different views on death, which speaks to the mind of the authors. Woolf finds death as a comfort while Cunningham argues with his Clarissa's views of death that it is not something to hold up and revere. He values life more. This is most likely because of Virginia Woolf's depression, and her psychological problems. Death causes all characters in both novels to evaluate their lives and decide whether or not their best days are actually gone.
Clarissa Vaughan struggles with the same types of feelings and Richard's death has a very similar effect on her. She seems to dislike the fact nothing she says sounds appropriate and is distressed that "already someone who's died is reassessed as a respectable citizen, doer of good deeds, a wonderful man" (221). She finds that death causes people to lie about or hide the truth. She doesn't like death because it changes things, and makes the truth harder to get at.
Woolf and Cunningham have very different views on death, which speaks to the mind of the authors. Woolf finds death as a comfort while Cunningham argues with his Clarissa's views of death that it is not something to hold up and revere. He values life more. This is most likely because of Virginia Woolf's depression, and her psychological problems. Death causes all characters in both novels to evaluate their lives and decide whether or not their best days are actually gone.
Timelessness
Both books have a theme of timelessness. The past gets wrapped up in the present and the future is held back in the present, and both get confused for the present. With Clarissa Dalloway, she constantly finds herself pondering her past, as she does several times within the first few pages of the book. She remembers "looking at flowers, the the trees with the smoke winding off of them...until Peter Walsh said 'Musing among the vegetables?'" (3). Big Ben and its "leaden circles" (4) fill the air throughout her day, and she only counts them a couple of times throughout the novel. This exemplifies how she goes through her day not worry about time. Her memory and constant remembering brings the past into the present, and she is always remembering what one would call the 'good old days'. Septimus also does this with his hallucinations, but these are less under his control, one could argue. The past and his actions torment him. Time hurts him.
Virginia Woolf's theme of timelessness is apparent most readily with Clarissa Dalloway, but Michael Cunningham's turn on timelessness takes a more opposite twist. This theme is exemplified best when Clarissa visits Richard and readers meet him for the first time. Clarissa Vaughan is checking up on him and trying to make sure he has taken care of himself. She mentions the party that afternoon, and he seems to believe he has already been to it and it has already happened. He tells her "I thought you meant, did I remember having gone to them [the party, the award ceremony]. And I did remember. I seem to have fallen out of time" (62). Richard's disease has caused him to be shut up for most of the day and so he has nothing to really do but think. In his mind, the future, present, and past are all at one moment. This is a view that Einstein also shared, believing that humans only had the ability to perceive time linearly. To Richard, he has already gone to the party. His depression, which has arisen from his disease, has made him less happy with living, this fast forwarding in time is a way for him to live the rest of his life, without really having to.
Both author's express the power of timelessness, and the desire for it. With Clarissa Dalloway's want to constantly remember the past, and with Richard's ability to drag the future back into the present, these themes are conveyed in both novels. Cunningham draws upon Woolf's theme and changes it marginally. He adds the future aspect, while preserving the past aspect. Both authors seem to agree on this theme, believing it to be extremely powerful in the human mind, but Cunningham makes it his own when he adds in the future becoming part of the present and having such a profound effect on it.
Virginia Woolf's theme of timelessness is apparent most readily with Clarissa Dalloway, but Michael Cunningham's turn on timelessness takes a more opposite twist. This theme is exemplified best when Clarissa visits Richard and readers meet him for the first time. Clarissa Vaughan is checking up on him and trying to make sure he has taken care of himself. She mentions the party that afternoon, and he seems to believe he has already been to it and it has already happened. He tells her "I thought you meant, did I remember having gone to them [the party, the award ceremony]. And I did remember. I seem to have fallen out of time" (62). Richard's disease has caused him to be shut up for most of the day and so he has nothing to really do but think. In his mind, the future, present, and past are all at one moment. This is a view that Einstein also shared, believing that humans only had the ability to perceive time linearly. To Richard, he has already gone to the party. His depression, which has arisen from his disease, has made him less happy with living, this fast forwarding in time is a way for him to live the rest of his life, without really having to.
Both author's express the power of timelessness, and the desire for it. With Clarissa Dalloway's want to constantly remember the past, and with Richard's ability to drag the future back into the present, these themes are conveyed in both novels. Cunningham draws upon Woolf's theme and changes it marginally. He adds the future aspect, while preserving the past aspect. Both authors seem to agree on this theme, believing it to be extremely powerful in the human mind, but Cunningham makes it his own when he adds in the future becoming part of the present and having such a profound effect on it.
Flowers & Human Emotion
Flowers and other plants are ubiquitous in both novels. The different flowers represent emotions in Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa feels the need to surround herself with them, and this is representative of her need to block out reality. When she goes in the morning to "buy flowers herself" (3), she is attempting to ensure that her party will be festive and full of happiness. The characters, thus, that handle the flowers with expert care are more comfortable with their emotions than other characters. Richard hold his flowers awkwardly, but he uses them to communicate with Clarissa, to tell her he loves her (115). Flowers are a tool which the characters try to utilize because in this novel, Woolf conveys the idea that they can control emotion. Surroundings, by extension, do this as well.
In The Hours, the most profound mention of flowers begins with Clarissa Vaughan, when she also goes to buy flowers. She though brings some of them to Richard, in an effort to force emotion on him, as she seems to have done in the past with other objects in the small apartment (57). She too wants to use them for her party to make sure that it will be a success. He suffers from AIDS and is so blank in the book most of the time, and her memories of him so good, that she wants, in some way, to make him what he once was so he can be happy. The fact he doesn't seem to take real notice of them also proves his indifference and acceptance of him going to die. Laura Brown also is affected by flowers, when her husband Dan buys her some even though it is his birthday (44). He is fresh back from the war, and seemingly eager to prove he's the same and still loves her very much. But "she sees him see that she in angry" (44) and because she does not like the fact he has done this for her, this suggests she doesn't care for his affections, no matter how great they may be.
Woolf and Cunningham mostly agree on this theme. Woolf suggests that people use flowers as tools to influence others' emotions because the human emotion is so very unpredictable and uncontrollable that people want to be able to influence it. Cunningham suggests they are a more ineffective tool, because no matter how many flowers or things Clarissa buys for Richard, or how many Dan gets for Laura, he will not cheer up, and she will not love him back genuinely. The flowers in both books are substitute emotions, to replace the ones the characters feel or wish each other would feel. Also, like flowers, human emotion withers away after time has had its toll on it.
In The Hours, the most profound mention of flowers begins with Clarissa Vaughan, when she also goes to buy flowers. She though brings some of them to Richard, in an effort to force emotion on him, as she seems to have done in the past with other objects in the small apartment (57). She too wants to use them for her party to make sure that it will be a success. He suffers from AIDS and is so blank in the book most of the time, and her memories of him so good, that she wants, in some way, to make him what he once was so he can be happy. The fact he doesn't seem to take real notice of them also proves his indifference and acceptance of him going to die. Laura Brown also is affected by flowers, when her husband Dan buys her some even though it is his birthday (44). He is fresh back from the war, and seemingly eager to prove he's the same and still loves her very much. But "she sees him see that she in angry" (44) and because she does not like the fact he has done this for her, this suggests she doesn't care for his affections, no matter how great they may be.
Woolf and Cunningham mostly agree on this theme. Woolf suggests that people use flowers as tools to influence others' emotions because the human emotion is so very unpredictable and uncontrollable that people want to be able to influence it. Cunningham suggests they are a more ineffective tool, because no matter how many flowers or things Clarissa buys for Richard, or how many Dan gets for Laura, he will not cheer up, and she will not love him back genuinely. The flowers in both books are substitute emotions, to replace the ones the characters feel or wish each other would feel. Also, like flowers, human emotion withers away after time has had its toll on it.