Topic > Comparing the theme of suppression and intuition in 'the Hours' and 'Mrs Dalloway'

When examining the intertextual connections between two texts, the effects of context, purpose and audience on the formation of meaning are evident. Virginia Woolf's modernist novel "Mrs Dalloway" (Penguin, 1925) and Stephen Daldry's postmodern film adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel "The Hours" (Miramax, 2002) are examples, as "The Hours" offers new insights about repression across lives. of his three heroines as well as affirming those offered in "Mrs Dalloway". This is manifested through the exploration of struggle and failure to conform to society's expectations and its psychological impacts and the sense of dissatisfaction due to oppressive social roles and norms. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The exploration of how the inability to embody social roles can have repressive repercussions on mental health and the inner self is evident in Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway." Although modernism was in response to scientific developments, Woolf represents ignorance of psychology when manifested in the authoritarian form of mechanically minded Dr. Holmes and Bradshaw's resistance to Freudian developments as they mistreat Septimus, who suffers from shock due to their denial of male weakness. Through Septimus's use of indirect interior monologue – a modernist tool that emphasizes the inner self – we see that he imperatively ensures that he "would not go mad" in a society concerned with external facades – something Woolf criticized in her 1924 essay 'Mr Bennet and Mrs Brown' - a foreshadowing and ironic allusion to Shakespeare's 'King Lear'. Through the beneficial use of intertextuality, we can now understand that others' inability to accept his mental illness is the cause of Septimus's psychological descent into madness. Thus, Dr. Holmes is "human nature" personified: Septimus would rather commit suicide than suffocate in a repressive society with no concern for the inner self, a choice that has significant implications for the characters. of Daldry's "The Hours". intertextual connections. The struggle to maintain the constricting archetype of the 1950s home facade overwhelms Laura and she ends up committing suicide in "a room of her own." When Laura begins to read "Mrs Dalloway," Glass's musical score plays, the precious intertextuality that allows us to understand Laura's internal conflict with her external self, parallel to Septimus. Virginia's foreshadowing postmodern voiceover: "Did it matter that it must inevitably cease completely?" echoes Woolf's modernist stream-of-consciousness style, and the camera shots between them highlight the postmodern, metanarrative relationship between composer and interlocutor. The aerial shot of the surrealist and postmodern nature of water overwhelms Laura as the musical crescendos echo the water motif in the lyrics as Virginia drowns herself and as Septimus "dives" out the window to his death due to the harmful ramifications of a society repressive. However, Laura Brown "chose life" because she found a way to escape her family who metaphorically imprisoned her. Thus, the intertextual connections powerfully enliven the analogous relationship between "Mrs Dalloway" and "The Hours", providing the.