“A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life”. Fluid Sexual Identity in Michael Cunningham´s The Hours

Abstract

This bachelor thesis, Fluid Sexual Identity in Michael Cunningham´s The Hours focuses on the approach to sexual identity in The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Cunningham as a gay writer draws on his own experiences and integrates his vision of sexual identity into his works. He perceives sexual identity as a fluid and never fixed quality. In this essay the main characters of the novel will be examined to present the complicated themes of sexuality and identity. The Hours contains three narrative strands. The first one explores one day in Virginia Woolf’s life as she starts to write Mrs. Dalloway in 1923. The second strand focuses on Laura Brown’s day in 1949 as she is trying to escape her life of an American housewife. The third strand concentrates on Clarissa Vaughan, a New York based editor, as she organizes a party for her dying friend, Richard. An analysis of these three characters will form the main substance of this essay. In the last part of this essay the movie The Hours, based on the novel, will be analysed as it translates to the screen the main themes of the novel. Arguments will be supported by source material from a varied assortment of articles, interviews with the author and profiles written about the novel along with material relating to the eponymous film based on the novel.