On Cunningham’s Creative Writing: An Exploration Of The Hours From The Perspective Of Barthes’s Text Theory

Michael Cunningham is a famous writer in the circle of American contemporary literature. His masterpiece The Hours fully reveals his unique skills in constructing literary texts. Defying the sequential of time and space, Cunningham creatively makes up meaningful texts through combining realistic elements with literary works as well as applying reading to rewriting. His writing is not restricted to the traditional narrative forms and strategies. Both of the themes and scopes in his works are wide and broad. According to Roland Barthes’s text theory, this paper aims to discuss Cunningham’s creative writing of The Hours, especially on his creative characterizations and plot design.According to Barthes’s concept of "the death of the author", this thesis firstly analyzes Cunningham’s portrayal of his two characters as the fictional authors, represented by Virginia Woolf and Richard Brown, and his specific plot arrangements for eliminating their authorial subjectivity. Together with the fictionalized Woolf and Richard, Cunningham loses his own authority by behaving as a "modern scriptor" When he writes The Hours, he is already in the process of reading and rewriting other literary texts, such as Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The death of the authors’ authority lays important foundation for Cunningham’s creative writing.Secondly, starting from Barthes’s demonstration of the readers’active reading, this thesis explores Cunningham’s creative incarnation of another two of his protagonists, Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughan, with active reading. The same as the two fictional readers, since Cunningham is engaged in modern scripting, that is, he creatively makes reading and rewriting at the same time, the actual readers of his are provided with the opportunity to explode new textual meanings during reading. The active reading of the readers not only nourishes their respective authors’original writing but also brings along innovative meanings to The Hours.Furthermore, based on Barthes’s definition of the "writerly" text, the thesis tries to interpret Cunningham’s presenting of the three typical writerly exemplifications in The Hours. Due to creative writing, Cunningham makes the novel reach to a writerly space. It contains plenty of writing modes. Its image of death utters plural voices. And its main character Clarissa refers to various literary texts.Therefore, through The Hours, Cunningham takes on his creative writing. Depending on the special characterization, Cunningham introduces the fictional authors and readers. Yet, relying on creative plot design, Cunningham simultaneously deprives the authors of the writing authority, which further grants freedom to the readers. Concerning the fictional authors’subversive writing and the readers’active reading, Cunningham outstretches his own monotonous writing and completes the writerly text The Hours. The exploration of the novel not only reveals Cunningham’s creative writing but also opens up a new direction to other authors’writing.