On The Death Theme In Michael Cunningham's Novels

The American writer Michael Cunningham is famous for his work The Hours in 1998, of which poeric language, profound and sensitive emotional description, imaginary of Virginia Woolf and rewrite of Mrs Dalloway move and fascinate people. And the story of A Home at the End of the World which makes him well-known, may be not accepted by ordinary people, but there are full of wonderful representation and earnest emotion, from which people can forsee the huge capability of the writer. Putting the two novels together, we can find many in common: the setup of the characters and their temperament, the arrangment of the plots and sences, the discussion about the theme of the novels. Among these, what interests me most is the writer's persistence and sublimation about the death theme. This thesis offers detailed intertextual reading on A Home at the End of the World and The hours, which interprets minutly death sences and consciousness and analyzes the influence of death on the characters; and based on the words, deeds and mental activity of the characters, it reflects the attitude of them towards death, especially the strength to love life and be towards death.This thesis includes three parts. The first part is the introduction, which reviews the change of the death theme on the westen literary history. This is followed by the research situation about Cunningham inland, the research method and main content of the thesis. The second part is the body part, which devides into three chapters. The first chapter introduces the writer and the two novels that the thesis involves. The second chapter analyzes the death in the novels, including the life background with death, the death forms and consciousness and exploring the influence of the death on the fate and choice of the characters; the third chapter emphasizes the sublimation of the characters' opinions on the death: understanding the death from the other's death, finding the possibility of the future life, loving life in own life, establishing support on own lover. The last part is the epilogue, which is the conclusion about the thesis.