The Living Space Of Urban Women In The Hours

Michael Cunningham(1952-)is a famous contemporary American writer. By virtue ofhis novel The Hours, he receives a number of awards and becomes famous in literary circles.The Hours mainly tells the stories of three women in one day, who live in different times anddifferent cities. These three seemly unrelated stories are connected by the novel MrsDalloway. The writer Virginia Woolf begins to plot out her new work Mrs Dalloway. Thehousewife Laura Brown is reading Mrs Dalloway. The book editor Clarissa Vaughan is called“Mrs Dalloway” by one of her friends in daily life. Mainly making up by three women, thisnovel presents the living conditions of urban women and reflects the confusion of women.The Hours attracts many scholars at home and abroad, and they have studied this novelfrom different points of view. But few of them have used space theory to analyse this novelsystematically. The space theory is the hotspot in various fields, and provide a new idea forthe study of The Hours.This paper will mainly use Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault and Edward W Soja’ stheories to elaborate. These three men’s theories both have resemblance and difference, whichhelp to lay the theoretical foundation for this paper. From physical space, spiritual space andwomen’s living space these three aspects, this paper reveals the state of three heroines. Spaceimages appear repeatedly and constitute the main content of physical space. Some ordinaryspace forms can reflect people’s various situations. The voice in people’s mind and heartbelongs to spiritual space. It reveals the confusions in people’s heart to the readers directly.Living actively among cities and families, women’s figures weave the complicated femininespace. Using space theory to interpret the novel The Hours can reveal urban women’s livingsituations and the struggles in their life experience profoundly. These all helps to find whatand why the modern people are suffering and how to obtain freedom in the confrontation withthe space. Three heroines’ courses of life are the epitome of many women. From this point ofview, this paper has some social values.