时时刻刻-与-达诺维夫人的互文性研究.doc

本科毕业论文题 目 An Intertextual Study of The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway学院外国语学院专业英语年级2012级学号姓名指导教师成绩二一六年六月Yang iiiOutlineThesis: It has both the cultural significance and aesthetic significance to study The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway with intertextuality. Introduction. The Intertextuality of Images in the Two WorksA. The Theory of Intertextuality and its developmentB. Flower一Ornament and Self-AwarenessC. (June)Morning一The New Beginning. The Intertextuality of Main Characters in the Two WorksA. Virginia Woolf一The Writer of Mrs. DallowayB. Laura Brown一The Reader of Mrs. DallowayC. Clarissa Vaughan一The Modern Mrs. Dalloway. ConclusionAbstractMichael Cunningham is a famous contemporary American writer. The Hours is his representative work which was modeled on Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway and published in 1998. This novel narrate Virginia, Laura, and Clarissas event in a single day emotionally, while the three of them are from different times. This thesis attempts to interpret It by using the intertextuality which was first put forward by the French post-structuralism scientist Julia Kristeva in 1966, and explores the relationship between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway. This thesis aims at studying intertextual and stimulating readers interests on classic works with a new perspective and elaborations and spreading Michael Cunninghams works with the intertextuality theory which contributes to understanding and adopting this new writing technique.Yang 13An Intertextual Study of The Hours and Mrs. DallowayMichael Cunningham is a famous American novelist, he was born in 1952 in the southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio and he grew up in California. Cunningham graduates from Stanford University with a bachelors degree in English literature and later he learns in Iowa State University. He is granted a masters degree in Aesthetics. He published A Home at the End of the World and Flesh and Blood that win him the Whiting Writers Award in 1995. He published his masterpiece The Hours in 1998. Next year he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Pen/Faulkner Award. The novel was made into a film in 2002 which won the Golden Globe Film and seven nominations including the best adapted screenplay of the 75th annual Oscar Academy Awards. The Hours describes one-day life of three women of different era based on Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway. He once said: I never thought myself as rewriting Mrs. Dalloway. What I wanted to do was more akin to music, to jazz, whereby a musician will play improvisations on an existing pieces of great music from the past一not to reinvent it, but to both honor it and try to make another work of art out of art out of an existing work of art.” (Schiff 2) Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882一28 March 1941) was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, took for one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the 20th century. She was born into a privileged English household in 1882, writer Virginia Woolf was raised by free-thinking parents. She began to write as a young girl and published her first novel, The voyage Out, in 1915. Her nonlinear, free form prose style inspired her peers and earned her much praise. She was also known for her mood swings and bouts of deep depression. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her well-known works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of Ones Own (1929), with its famous dictum: A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Woolf is often regarded to have push the light of English language a little further against darkness. (E. M. Forster 28) She is regarded as one of the most famous English women writers. Mrs. Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolfs best-known novels. This novel takes place on one day morning of June in 1923, as Clarissa Dalloway walks through London on a fine June morning; a plane captures her attention. Crowds stare upwards to decipher the message while the plane turns and loops, leaving off one letter, picking up another. Like the airplanes swooping path, Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa and those whose lives brush hers from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, to her daughter Elizabeth, the girls angry teacher, Doris Kilman, and war-shocked Serpentine Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness.There are also many home researches studying The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway. They are mainly from the theme analysis, death inclination, and psychoanalysis and so on. For example, Zhao Lianyue: On the Theme in Michael Cunninghams The Hours; Qiu Linlin: A Multi一Dimensional Analysis of Suicide in The Hours. Many researchers also study the two novels from the perspective of intertextuality. For example, Wang Chen: An Intertextual Reading of The Hours; Ye Jiachun: Literary Creation in Intertextuality一An Intertextual Study of The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway. There are many abroad researchers study The Hours in some aspects. Most of them interpret the novel from its book and its film reviews. From the foreign website, we can know the three thesis. One is The Suicide of the Author and his Reincarnation in the Reader: Intertextuality in The Hours by Michael Cunningham; the second is written by La Revue Lisa, that is Michael Cunninghams The Hours: echoes Virginia Wool; the last one is The Meaning of Death in Virginia Wool. By using the theory of intertextuality, the first thesis interprets The Hours from this side. The second thesis also studies from many angels by finding some echoes of Virginia Woolf. The last one is from the death to study the novel.Michael Cunningham wants to use the theory of intertextuality to create his novel, The Hours. Cunningham borrows some similar images and plots to recreate, and make great innovation. The Hours also makes Cunningham famous in contemporary society. Intertextuality is a kind of text theory generating from the trend of structuralism and post-structuralism, and it is only 40 years from its coming into being to the establishment. Intertextuality is firstly introduced by Julia Kristeva in 1966, and it has been borrowed and transformed many times, and then after that it has become a much used term in contemporary literature. So intertextuality has become one of the most frequent uses of terms in contemporary literary theories and cultural studies. For Allen, Texts have no unity or unified meaning on their own, they are thoroughly connected to on-going cultural and social processes. (Allen 37) For Roudiez, The concept (intertextuality) has nothing to do with matters of influence by one writer upon another, or with the source of a literary work; it does involve the components of a textual system. (Roudiez 15) The development of intertextuality contains three stages. The first stage, French semioticist Julia Kristeva puts forward the broad-sense intertextuality. She thinks any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another. (Kristeva 36) The second stage, French scholar Gerard Genette puts forward the narrow intertextuality. He creates the term transtextuality which refers all that sets the text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts. (Genette 1) The third stage, post-modern scholar Harold Blooms misreading of poetics and J Hills Millers combination of Derridas deconstruction theory and De Mans rhetoric theory, thus it gives a further research of intertextuality. American writer Atlas says that literature is plagiarism. Adopting the intertextuality in text writing is right and proper. Theres an old saying in ancient China that theres three kinds of copies in poet writing一copying image; copying syntax and copying rhythm. Many best-known poets and writers have copied others works home and abroad, such as Wang Wei, Du Fu, Shakespeare and Eliot, etc., but they make their own works improvement and changes and put forward their own insights instead of simple imitation. Parody as an important intertextual strategy, in spite of its conversion or twisted way, appreciation or respect, contemplation or aversion, shows the direct relation with the original texts.Michael Cunningham uses the intertextuality strategy to create his own novel The Hours. Cunningham not only shapes a modern Mrs. Dalloway, but also fictionalizes Woolfs writing progress of Mrs. Dalloway and Lauras reading course of Mrs. Dalloway.Graham Allen once wrote in his Intertextuality that the authors write their works on the basis of foregoing texts and they may pick the words, plots, images, characters and techniques, etc. that they need from the foregoing texts. One texts value lies in the deconstruction and construction upon other texts. (Wang 33) Cunningham critically inherited the symbolism of these images, subtly revealed and deepened the theme of the novel. In the following, this thesis will give an analysis of the mutual images in The Hours and. Mrs. Dalloway.Flowers are used to ornament and give people a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Most time, flowers stand for love and all the romantic and good things in life. In Woolfs opinion, flowers represent womens marginal positions in patriarchal society where man thinks little of woman. Woolf revolts this nonchalance and she wants to call on the self-consciousness of woman through the figurative flowers.In Mrs. Dalloway, Mrs. Dalloway goes to buy flowers in the morning to begin her new day. She seems to be satisfied with her life to buy some flowers. The flowers can give people a good spirit wherever and whenever. She indulges herself in a world of flowers. Her husband comes home with a bunch of roses that stands for his love for her certainly. He hasnt done such things for many years. Richard is a congressman; he is keen on politics and successful in his career. He just wants to buy the flowers suddenly. In this sense, flowers symbolize women selves一the ornament. He pleases his wife with a bunch of flowers and succeeds. We can see that women can be pleased immediately even though they are angry or sad. Woolf desperately wants to help women out of this superficial satisfaction.Serpentine, the other main character, when Woolf descripts him, the flowers are also referred. Now he withdraws up into the snows, and roses hang about him一the thick red roses which grows on my bedroom wall, he reminds, himself. (Woolf 76-77) We are able to know that Serpentine is a shy and weak person who doesnt want to face the real world, and also doesnt want to communicate with the outside world. From these we can know that he is helpless and grievous. From this description, we can also know that Serpentine envies of roses powerful spirit and fearlessness. He looks at his wife when she makes hats, She looked pale, mysterious, like a lily, drowned, under water, he thought. (Woolf 98-99)He places his wife in the position of flowers in the subconscious. At that time, the drowned lily symbolizes that Rezia is so lonely and helpless in a foreign country. In The Hours, Cunningham continues to use the image of flower, hinting the necessity and certainty of freeing from the patriarchal society. Clarissa goes to buy flowers for the party and when she goes in the flower shop, a tall woman, broad-shouldered amid the bunches of roses and hyacinths, the mossy flats of paperwhites, the orchids trembling on their stalks. (Cunningham 24) The description is the same with Woolfs description of Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa also buys flowers to visit Richard, but he only signs Right, right. The flowers, the party. (Cunningham 60) That shows his ironic and discontent towards Clarissas busy with flowers and parties. Sally goes back home with yellow flowers which represent their love and happiness during 18 years. Laura Brown wakes up in the morning and goes downstairs finding the flowers that Dan has bought himself. In Lauras opinion, the rose is a little vicious because she feels that her duty is violated by her husband and she is dissatisfaction. Although she decorates the cake with flowers, she thinks that the flowers are not perfect. Actually, Laura is fuss and dissatisfied with her present life rather than the flowers or birthday cake. She tries to do her duty but powerless. The roses symbolize her loneliness and anxiety. So flowers mean ornament and can be used to increase the atmosphere. We can see the flowers on the birthday all the time and people buy flowers in festivals. So the flowers are only accessories sometimes just symbolize the statues of women in the society. When Vanessa comes to visit Woolf with her children, they find a dying bird in the garden and the children resolve to make a grass bed for the bird. Then Angelica picks some yellow roses which are the decorations of death, but Virginia looks with unanticipated pleasure at this modest circlet of thorns and flowers; this wild deathbed. She would like to lie down on it herself. (Cunningham 119) Flowers become the symbol of death and Woolf wants to lie in that deathbed. In reality, Woolf has the failed suicide experiences before and the deathbed is a temptation, hinting her inner suicidal trend and echoing her drowning. The flowers imply different meanings in different situations and in different peoples eyes. The connotation of flowers is rich and it reflects the liberation and progress of women to some extent.Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself” (Woolf 5) on a June morning. She walks out of her house after telling Lucy what to do. What a morning一fresh as if issued to children on a beach. (Woolf 5) She at once thinks of the morning, fresh and quiet, when she was young in Bourton with Peter. She feels very comfortable and cool about the air. She enjoys walking in the street in such a morning and feels the air of happy. In Mrs. Dalloway, Septimus and her wife walk to the park in the morning. Septimus still retains losing himself in his world no matter when and where and that makes her wife painful and helpless, but his wife doesnt give up him even she suffers and is desperate most of the time. Morning means destroy and light for the couple. In The Hours, Laura gets up on a June morning, too. She begins to read Mrs. Dalloway in the morning and it is her husbands birthday. It is a hot, white morning in June. (Cunningham 42) She has many things to do for the Dans birthday but she lets her read one more piece. She can predict that it will be a tough day even though it is still the morning. Morning may mean pain for her.On a June morning as well, There are still the flowers to buy. Clarissa feigns exasperation (though she loves doing errands like this) (Cunningham 9). So the modern Mrs. Dalloway goes out to buy flowers. When she goes out, she feels the fresh June morning at once. It seems that she is swimming in a clear and cool pool that makes her cosy and content. A June morning stands for a new life and offers endless strength and confidence.Woolf begins to write Mrs. Dalloway on a morning. She wakes up in the morning without having breakfast and starts to write and feels tired later, so she drowns herself on another morning and ends her life. Morning means both hope and desperation for her because of her mental disease and her writing. The two works both start with morning; everyone experiences morning everyday with different feelings. The text is written through recalling, retelling and rewriting. Cunningham writes the June morning in his novel based on Mrs. Dalloway, expressing his particular meanings.In prologue of The Hours, Cunningham details the suicide of Virginia Woolf. The description makes us know more about Woolf. In The Hours, Virginia Woolfs struggle with mental illness leads her to commit suicide, which Cunningham describes in the novels prologue. She wants to be healthy; she perceives the world in such a profound way that the feelings of madness haunt her. In The Hours, Cunningham describes Woolf as a woman who cannot do housework, and even cannot get on well with others. She wants to live alone, and evades the real world. So Mrs. Dalloway is described as a perfect housewife by Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway, and Mrs. Dalloway can do everything very well besides housework. After that, Virginia Woolf who loves her own life and social life very much, even she is ill. It shows that she always helps Lenard to operate the Press and makes social plans to gather the young and popular guests into a party no matter her illness. She bears her mental illness, and is fully committed to writing. When she writes Mrs. Dalloway, she wants to shape a character that can do everything well and not like her, so she creates Mrs. Dalloway who is good at contacting with other people, and she can also get along with her servants. Mrs. Dalloway is quite different a Woolf to some extent. Besides, in The Hours, Woolfs mental illness is so serious that she cannot focus herself in writing Mrs. Dalloway, but she finishes it at last. She has headache for a long time, she cannot stand her headache any more, and she often hears some voices. She becomes very anxious, nervous and mad: They infiltrate her. They inhabit rather than merely afflict her, the way viruses inhabit their hosts.(Cunningham 70) They, in there, are her illusions; Woolf knows it is the torment for her. She is affected by her illusion in her daily life, social life, and writing is affected a lot.Laura Brown is a housewife, although Laura Brown lives in a rich family, has a warm husband and a lovely