Life as Art

The novel “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham was a very interesting novel, which won him a Pulitzer Prize, and it was also created into a movie. Because the “The Hours” is about searching for the meaning of life, I will decide if either the novel or the movie more effectively explores the dominate themes, which are duty vs. individuality, reflections on mortality, constructive social roles, and life as art as well as how it was achieved.

First, the move was dominant in how the main characters roles were illustrated and reinforced by other characters in the movie. Kitty and Richie both verbally reinforced Mrs. Brown’s role as a house wife by mentioning baking a cake should not be so difficult, which happens to be just one of the domestic roles of a housewife. In the novel, there is no one reinforcing her role. Clarissa the socialite’s role was reinforced by Richard as he describes her role to that of the character in his novel, Mrs. Dalloway, who always throws parties. Mrs. Woolf’s role was enforced by her servant’s attitude toward her and how they mocked her; Nellie felt like she was in charge of the kitchen because Mrs. Woolf shines away from her role being authoritative. Still, the novel and the movie both effectively shown dominance when they portrayed the individuality of how each woman refused to accept their ordinary life, which was view and described similarly in the movie as well as in the novel.

Next, the reflections on mortality was definitely more effective in the movie than it was in the novel because of it was visual; the scene of the dead bird, and Mrs. Woolf thinking about kill off Mrs. Dalloway in her novel; she looks into the dying birds eyes and changes her mind about killing Mrs. Dalloway. The scene of Mrs. Brown in the hotel laying on the bed, and she dreams of it being submerged by water, which represents her taking her life; that scene was also a pivotal moment in  the movie because she changed her mind about committing suicide. The water scene represented life and death; life for Mrs. Brown and death for Mrs. Woolf who happens to have committed suicide by drowning. Richard believed if he was dead Clarissa would be able to focus on her life with Sally. The visual references of the reflections on mortality were clearly dominant in the movie vs. reading and tying to visualize it in the novel.

Furthermore, the constructive social roles of the main characters were equally displayed in both the movie and in the novel. Mrs. Woolf and Richard were novelist, Clarissa was an editor, and Mrs. Brown took pleasure in reading book, so all their social roles had something to do with literature.

Finally, life as art was equally represented in both the movie and in the novel; they both gave their audience an insight into the creation of life evolving into art. In the movie, I was able to view and connect the scenes, which helped me to understand the art of each of the characters life and what they were trying to accomplish; similarly, the novel’s rendition of life as art came to life as I was reading through its pages and trying to understand why each of the main characters were unhappy with their life and the journey their thoughts and feelings took them on while searching for happiness.