Abstract

The Hours, written by Michael Cunningham, mainly depicts the progressive awakening of feminine consciousness of three heroines from three different times in the 20th century. Virginia Woolf, from the 1920s, who is not content in the constraint of women’s established conventions, tries to bury herself in writing to escape the responsibilities but ends up with drowning herself in a river; Laura Brown from the mid-20th century, who is unwilling to chain herself in the mediocre life, searches for economic independence by abandoning her family; Clarissa Vaughan, from the end of the 20th century, cannot bear to see talents eroded by the common life and struggles against her own choices, finally becomes a totally free woman. This thesis aims to analyze the progressive awakening of feminine consciousness of the three heroines ── from the partial awakening of Woolf to the further awakening of Laura and then the complete awakening of Clarissa, as well as the causes, which mainly include personal and domestic causes, leading to the awakening of their feminine consciousness.

Key words: The Hours, progressive awakening, feminine consciousness, personal causes, domestic causes
 
摘 要

迈克尔•坎宁安的小说《时时刻刻》描述了来自二十世纪三个不同时代的女性自我意识的渐进式觉醒的过程。二十世纪早期的弗吉尼亚•伍尔夫不安于女性传统责任的束缚，通过埋头写作来逃避责任，最终却选择溺亡来获得内心的自由；二十世纪中叶的劳拉•布朗不甘囿于平庸的家庭生活，走上社会勇敢地追求经济独立却以抛弃家庭为代价；二十世纪末的克拉丽莎•沃恩不忍才华被平常的生活销蚀，在自我选择中矛盾挣扎，最终成为一个完全自由的女性。本论文旨在全面分析本小说中这三位女主角的女性意识的渐进式觉醒，即从伍尔夫的初步觉醒、到劳拉的进一步觉醒、最后到克拉丽莎的完全觉醒，并细致分析促成她们女性意识觉醒的多方面因素，主要包括个人因素和家庭因素。

关键词：《时时刻刻》；渐进式觉醒；女性意识；个人因素；家庭因素
 
1. Introduction
The Hours (1998), written by Michael Cunningham, is an experimental novel of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Cunningham honors Woolf with his creative reinvention and he also uses the original name that Virginia Woolf set for her novel. In her dairy, Woolf explained that Mrs. Dalloway was a research on insanity and suicide, which by all means described a world of both soberness and lunacy. But in Cunningham’s novel, Virginia Woolf became one of the heroines and she was an epitome of the famous woman writer, though not exactly the same.