An Intertextual Study Of Mrs. Dalloway And The Hours

Michael Cunningham is a famous contemporary American writer, The Hours ishis representative work which was modeled on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway andpublished in1998. In this novel, it narrated Virginia, Laura, and Clarissa’s eventful lifein a single day while the three of them were from different times. The Hours is anemotional and exquisite novel, as far as it was published, The Hours has become abestseller. It was awarded the1999Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In2002, it was adaptedinto a successful film, which won the Golden Globe Award. It is this novel thatestablishes Cunningham as an important position in the American literary world.Researches on The Hours at home and abroad have been studied from variousperspectives, which are mainly from the views of psychoanalysis, feminism,postmodernism, the skills of writing, imagery analysis and so on. However, few peoplehave interpreted the novel from the perspective of intertextuality together with Mrs.Dalloway.This thesis attempts to interpret The Hours by using the intertextuality which wasfirst put forward by the French post-structuralism scientist Julia Kristeva in1966, andexplores the relationship between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway. The thesis includesfive parts:Chapter one, the introduction briefly introduces Michael Cunningham andVirginia Woolf and their two novels. It also gives a brief introduction of the home andabroad researches of the two novels. It mainly introduces the theory of intertextualityand the significance of the thesis.The second chapter mainly studies the intertextuality of the images in the twoworks. This thesis will analyze the intertextuality of the two works from the flower,disease and death, war and water. On the basis of the parody, Cunningham makes themodern thinking about the text.The third chapter describes the two works from the intertextuality of characters’names, including Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Brown and Clarissa Vaughan. The fourth chapter interprets the intertextuality of writing techniques in the twoworks, mainly from the names of the novel, the structure, the stream of consciousnessand the themes.The last chapter, conclusion mainly describes that Cunningham parodies Woolf’swork, and illustrates the creative meaning of intertextuality in The Hours. Cunninghamis not blind to repeat the original text, but makes the sense of innovation andbreakthrough. Meanwhile, Cunningham wants to reflect the interdependence of authors,readers and works by setting the characters in The Hours.