On Disease Image In The Hours Within The Context Of Modernity

"Disease of the century"is not a newly developing social phenomenon. At the earliest, it refers to a kind of literary phenomenon, at the later stage, it also gradually used to refer to human’s mental state. Such as natural disposition is withdrawn and incompatible with real world; or someone wears down their lives gradually in the lonely wandering; or they although talented, feel so pessimistic disappointment for the real lives that they can’t find the meaning of life. Under the vision of psychoanalysis, studying the Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours explored the new way of literary criticism. Under the guidance of psychoanalytic theory and symptomatic analysis, thesis tentatively examines various disease image, defense mechanism and negative esthetic experience, thus examining it according new dimension. This thesis aims to explain that The Hours is certain kind of nature writing to industrialized civilization oppress human nature developing freely in the context of modernity:modernization makes the whole society as a machine that used in production of bulk copy, it grimly control every sameness people. Pay absolutely attention to individual, which causes indifference between people is further intensified. In such a social background, the public is encountering a crisis of soul, obviously, it is the crisis that causes more and more individuals suffering from neurosis.The thesis’s introduction is divided into two parts:the first part, it briefly sorts out the previous research of The Hours, and direct to the argument of thesis; the second part, it expands the argument basis, critical paradigm and innovation value.The main body of the paper is divided into three chapters. The first chapter expounds various disease image and physical responses of individual. The second chapter unfolds with defense mechanism of mental illness of individual. Specially, it consists of two segments which are social roots and defense mechanism. The emphasis reveals defense mechanism behavior that individual adopted after their lives become heteromorphy forms disseminated by industrialized civilization. Chapter three exams the various heterogeneous morbid phenomenon in The Hours, which created the negative esthetic effect that makes people feel panic and shock. And in "Disease of the century" that suffuses of the doomsday, it concludes tragedy form——negative beauty that is diffused by life sentiment.The conclusion assesses the productive context of various disease image and negative esthetic experience in The Hours. At the same time, it also points out that psychoanalytic and symptomatic analysis provides a new perspective to study and criticism of The Hours.