A Foucauldian Interpretation Of Females’ Discourse In The Hours

Michael Cunningham is a very famous contemporary American writer.His novel The Hours published in 1998 is a great success.At the end of 2002,its film adaption also won the Golden Globe and achieved various Oscar nominations.Taking the female characters of The Hours as research objects,this paper tries to analyze the aphasia and reconstruction of females’ discourse in this work from the perspective of Michel Foucault’s theories to reveal the origin of the three heroines’ tragic fates and their marginal status under the social environment of male-centered discourse and power.This paper consists of introduction,conclusion and the four chapters.The introductory part gives a brief introduction of the author Michael Cunningham and The Hours,the literature review of this work both at home and abroad,the theoretical review of Foucauldian concepts and the thesis structure of the paper.The former three chapters respectively explore the females’ aphasia from three aspects in this film.The first chapter analyzes the daily routines of the three heroines from bodily perspective and tries to reveal that they even cannot speak for their own bodies.The second chapter probes their madness from spiritual perspective to uncover the helplessness in front of their thoughts.The third chapter,from the perspective of sexuality,clarifies their sexual tendency to indicate their silence before homosexuality.The last chapter respectively illustrates the three women’s reconstruction of discourse—Virginia gains freedom by committing suicide;Laura leads her ideal life by running away from home;Clarissa finally awakens from addiction to the good old days.The concluding part summarizes what have been mentioned in the last four chapters and it also reveals the author’s intention that he tries to shift the power and discourse to call on people to have the courage to reform.