Transcending Time: Michael Cunningham’s The Hours

In The Hours (1998), Michael Cunningham pays tribute to Virginia Woolf in a beautifully crafted re-imagining of Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Woolf's novel follows Clarissa Dalloway on a June day in London, as she prepares for a party she is giving that evening. With its emphasis on plumbing the depths of characters' inner lives, Mrs. Dalloway is characteristic of Woolf's oeuvre. Her experimental prose, a combination of stream of consciousness, interior monologue, and lyrical language, strives to capture what she referred to as moments of being, fleeting moments of joy, where even the smallest of gestures effect the most enduring impressions. As Clarissa recalls such past moments, considering her relationships with men and with women, the novel unfolds larger themes, exploring the nature of creativity, of identity and sanity, of loss, of time, and of the choices we make. As these themes overlap, so do people's lives. Woolf suggests we are tethered like a web, with delicacy, transparency, and resilience.

Cunningham spins similar webs among his characters; not only do their lives overlap within the novel's framework, but outside of it, as well, intersecting with the lives of their literary predecessors. It's a marvelous feat, really, and one Cunningham achieves by borrowing and transforming Woolf's characters, by mimicking Woolf's linguistic techniques (such as uniting scenes and themes through recurring images and language), and by similarly applying a poet's attention to language, to how sounds affect and effect meaning. Even his title, The Hours, borrows from Woolf, as it was her working title for Mrs. Dalloway.

The opening of The Hours makes clear Cunningham's intentions. After an epilogue visualizing Woolf's suicide, The Hours begins with Clarissa Vaughn (dubbed Mrs. Dalloway by her friend and former lover), an editor in modern day New York City, thinking, "There are still the flowers to buy." From here, Cunningham proceeds in the next two chapters to do what he does throughout the novel, to move seamlessly back and forth in time among the stories of three women, Clarissa Vaughn, Woolf herself, and Laura Brown, a disaffected 1950's mother and wife, escaping from everyday demands in the pages of Woolf's novel. All three women are introduced with the flower imagery, a central motif associated with the theme of creativity. Chapter two presents Virginia Woolf in the process of refining the first line of her novel: "Mrs. Dalloway said something (what?), and got the flowers herself." Correspondingly, chapter three introduces Laura Brown reading the first line of Mrs. Dalloway. The second paragraphs of each of these three introductory chapters stylistically and thematically reinforce the parallel structure. Chapter one:"It is New York City. It is the end of the twentieth century." Chapter two: It is a suburb of London. It is 1923." Chapter three: "It is Los Angeles. It is 1949." Not surprisingly, the setting for these three chapters is a day in June.

Cunningham's characters, aside from his fictionalized Woolf, are amalgamations of those found in Mrs. Dalloway, and he uses them similarly to explore the same themes present in Woolf's novel. Many critics, especially Woolf scholars, find fault with Cunningham's appropriation of Woolf's voice, arguing that by highlighting Woolf's suicide and depression, he presents a limited portrait of this multifaceted, talented woman. Turning a real person into fiction is always a risky venture. However, I think to dismiss the novel because of such concerns is to overlook the larger picture, to stumble across some fallen trees before envisioning the forest as a whole. Woolf struggled. She struggled with depression. She struggled to understand society devastated by war. And she sought to develop an artistic voice articulating the struggles particular to a female creative vision. Cunningham's multi-textured work explores how Woolf's voice resonates through time, spinning a web across generations and becoming part of others' moments of being, as they, too, struggle.

With an inventive and satisfying conclusion, The Hours merges the Clarissa Vaughn, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf narratives. Whereas Woolf's novel ends with Clarissa's identity being articulated by a male voice ("For there she was"), Cunningham (a male voice) gives that identity back to Clarissa ("And here she is, herself, Clarissa, not Mrs. Dalloway..."). With lyrical language (delicacy), borrowed plot (transparency), and affirmation (resilience), The Hours manifests Cunningham's respect and admiration for Woolf's craft, ideology, and imagination.

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Virginia Woolf:

My article on To the Lighthouse.

A rare and haunting voice recording of Woolf reading.

The International Virginia Woolf Society is largerly academic but provides plenty of useful links.

Beautiful photographs of Monk's House, one of Virginia Woolf's homes.

Brief biography and chronology.

Michael Cunningham:

An interview in which Cunningham discusses the genesis of The Hours.

This site has links to two audio recordings, one in which Cunningham reads from The Hours and the other, an interview with Cunningham.

New York Times article about scholars' dissatisfaction with The Hours, both the book and the film.