Good English Soap

“(Does he believe the bird has left a residue of death on his hands?  Does he believe good English soap and one of Aunt Virginia’s towels will wash it away?)”  (Cunningham 121).

This is another example of The Hours and its characters being more cynical and sad than those in Mrs. Dalloway.  Virginia Woolf here is commenting on how death always lingers, how it can’t be gotten rid of simply by “washing” it away or forgetting about it.  This shows a concern with death and its inevitability, whereas in Mrs. Dalloway death was simply there, and unavoidable, but life should still be lived as pleasantly as possible.

Vanity Fair

"Oliver St. Ives, who came out spectacularly in Vanity Fair," (Cunningham 93).

Vanity Fair is a magazine that features fashion, the lives of celebrities, and other such frivolities.  It is mentioned to bring to mind again living gaily and without care; being in love with trivial pursuits which can make one happy, as both Clarissa's are.  Vanity Fair is also a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, about girls climbing the ladder of social success, concerned only with vanity and beauty.  This is yet again a nod to the Clarissas and their way of life; taking joy in everything, no matter how trivial.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Vanity-Fair-About-the-Novel-A-Brief-Synopsis.id-158,pageNum-3.html

The Golden Notebook

"Vanessa's copy of The Golden Notebook lay on the chipped white nightstand of the attic bedroom where she still slept alone."  (Cunningham 98).

The Golden Notebook  is a book by Doris Lessing about a young woman living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).  The young woman keeps four different notebooks, each about a different aspect of her life, and they are used for the narrative structure of the book.  This is much like Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours, with different stories, different points of view, all coming together to form a cohesive novel.  The book is about the woman's struggle to find herself and to live authentically, which is what many of the characters in the two novel are also struggling to do; to enjoy life and time the way they should be enjoyed.  

http://www.mahalo.com/The_Golden_Notebook

Rilke's Apollo

“It is one thing to be asked to carry a cabbage across the street, quite another to be asked to carry the recently unearthed head of Rilke’s Apollo.”  (Cunningham 77). 

Ranier Maria Rilke, a poet, wrote a beautiful poem, "Torso of an Archaic Apollo," now translated from German, about a headless statue of the beautiful Apollo, a Greek god.  Apollo embodies many things, but all replications of him have been beautiful; he is, above all, an embodiment of beauty and youth.  In the poem, however, the statue of Apollo being viewed that is so loved and revered is missing a head, and the author bemoans this fact.  So if one was to “unearth” the head of Apollo, it would be important to the author of the poem to see it, but it would also represent the discovery and capture of youth and beauty.  Carrying the head would be a task of utmost importance, and one that must be delicately performed.

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/gr/Rilke.html

Solemnity.

“As horn bleat and dogs bay, as the whole raucous carnival turns and turns, blazing, shimmering; as Big Ben strikes the hours, which fall in leaden circles over the partygoers and the omnibuses, over stone Queen Victoria seated before the Palace on her shelves of geraniums, over the parks that lie sunken in their shadowed solemnity behind black iron fences.”  (Cunningham 168).

This portrayal of London is much more grim than Mrs. Dalloway’s.  It does, however, carry parallels between the two; the “leaden circles” of time, of the hours struck from Big Ben, ringing out and falling over all of London, is discussed in both books.  In Mrs. Dalloway, the parks, such as Regent’s Park, represent youth, happiness and reflection, and are in no way grim or dark.  Here, however, they are described as “sunken in their shadowed solemnity behind black iron fences.”  This portrays them more like death than life, and time as growing nearer to death, not adding to life.

On a bed of roses.

“If she does not speak too much, write too much, feel too much; if she does not travel impetuously to London and walk trhough its streets; and yet she is dying this way, she is gently dying on a bed of roses.”  (Cunningham 169).

London, for Virginia Woolf, was excitement, it was life, it was time and youth and growing old.  However, it also brought back her illness; was slowly killing her.  By moving to the country, she revived her physical health but could not live the way she wanted; she wanted more excitement, more stimulation.  In the country, she had all the comforts necessary to her health, a “bed of roses,” but her youth and her mind were dying, just as roses wilt and lose their beauty.

O. Henry

“‘This is sort of an O. Henry moment, isn’t it?’ Sally says.”

Sally references O. Henry after she arrives home with yellow roses for Clarissa, but notices that she already has some.  O. Henry, born William Sydney Porter, was an American short-story writer, who specialized in stories with coincidental or twist endings.  It is coincidental and a bit of a twist that both women have bought both the flowers.  I believe that Michael Cunningham may have referenced O. Henry here to serve as foreshadowing—the novel has very much of a twist ending, with Richard’s death and him turning out to be Laura Brown’s son.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ohenry.htm