buy flowers to express her love to Clarissa. As for Laura Brown, similar to Mrs. Dalloway marries not the Peter Walsh who loves adventure but a congressman, she is a well-protected flower in home, though dull, but safe. And Elizabeth also belongs to Mrs. Brown’s troop, Elizabeth “like a hyacinth, sheathed in glossy green, with buds just tinted, a hyacinth which has had no sun.”[9] P100
“Parody?can be extremely negative and extremely positive”[11], A Theory of Parody : The Teachings of Twentieth2Century Art Forms (New York : Methuen , 1985) 32。The list of parodies above show that: every coins has two sides, flower as a symbol in The Hours, echo the positive meaning of peace and love in Mrs. Dalloway in one aspect, but also expose, criticize or even satirize its symbol of poor mental and physical states of middle class, and then put forward the new symbol of feminine independence and arousal of their self-awareness.
2.1.2 Party
Party is such a bright and shining word, but why do people hold parties? Does Clarissa Dalloway hold the party to comfort the wounded hearts of people after the World War I, or to fight against the hollowness, loneliness, or even fear brought by the rich but dull life of middle class? But she said “What she liked was simply life”and“‘That’s what I do it for,’she said, speaking aloud, to life.”[9] P99
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People who enter the party cover from great Prime Minister， “The Prime Minister was coming, Agnes said”[9] P137 to the sorehead poor relatives Ellie Henderson who “not even caring to hold themselves upright”[9] P27, they are in general wear, chat in good manners and still lead elegant lifestyles.
Party helps people to explore their emotions, enlarge their social circles and also make people forget a lot in an orgiastic mood. Loneliness in a bash would at least be diluted. Clarissa Vaughan holds the same opinion, so she wants to gather people to cheer up her ex-lover, lifelong best friend Richard, she holds a vain hope to open the close door of ill Richard’s heart.
The quotation of symbol party, the parallelism of two parties, the motif of party (fighting against loneliness but ends up with heavier hollowness), the two Carissa, the two hostess or subjects, of parties dialog to each other through time and space and a intercultural heckling of value of existence bursts at the same time.
Both Clarissa Dalloway and Clarissa Vaughan occupy themselves with party to be held but in different background. In Mrs. Dalloway, she is a wealthy and leisurely lady of upper class is aware of disaster to society and people by the war, and her effort to hold a party is made to soothe the pain caused to people by offering a chance of reunion and
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connection, and the party serves a bridge of communication. “in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create?Anyhow, it was her gift”[9] P27, this passage, which is also the aspirations of most people, reveals both the city and Mrs. Dalloway’s omnipresent feeling of hollowness, loneliness and even fear after the war. In the way of holding a party, she proves her love for life, expresses her good wishes for tomorrow, pretends conquering her inferiority of being less accomplished and finds her values of existence. She dosen’t have the “universal love?gasping, trembling, painfully drawing out these profound truths which needed, so deep were they, so difficult, an immense effort to speak out, but the world was entirely changed by them for ever”[9] P54 so she hold a party to combine broken heats to relive the trauma.
In The Hours, party is also an expression of Clarissa’s obligation and treasuring of life and her concerns of Richard. Overweighs Clarissa Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughan is very optimistic and positive, and she attempts to awake people’s attention to her friend Richard who infected with AIDS figured as a sensitive, individual and brilliant poet.. Richard,
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easily been treated as abnormal and morbid for his disease, inwardly doubts whether he can manage attending the party held for him in honor of Carrouthers Prize. Richard ends his life with suicide, and the party becomes an occasion of lament on his death.
Allusion appears here. AIDS is cannot be cured just as the fear caused by war, the eternal loneliness, the hollowness, etc. they are the trauma of original sin of human beings, and only universal love, which is also a particular word in Wolf’s philosophy (an hypo-intertextuality here) , can relieve people. While Babel Tower never built.
Mrs. Brown, unlike Clarissa Vaughan who is a distinct allusion of Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway, connects and summarizes the symbols in a way of annexation, “she is full of what she’s read: Clarissa and insane Septimus, the flowers, the party”[10] P187.
2.1.3 Cake and Richmond
Dealing with the Birthday Cake for Dan, Mrs. Brown almost lost crisp and recuperation in Richmond is killing Wolf, too. These two symbols share an intertextual allusion. A perfect Birthday Cake represents the restriction of home, she fails to perform the conventional role of “a perfect wife and mother”, and Richmond for Wolf is also a restriction of aspirations.
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On the contrary, they have their secret or open shelter of freedom. Room nineteen （which intertext Doris Lessing’s To Room Nineteen） for Mrs. Brown is her private space, in where she can “to escape a cake”[10]
P147
，and London for Mrs. Wolf, “?and all London implies freedom,
about kisses, about the possibilities of art and the sly dark glitter of madness”[10] P172.
2.1.4 City
London is not only the shelter of V. Wolf, but also stands for the city and the charming city life. Through the analyses of literary works, their subjects selections of male writers and male images in different art forms in and abroad, we notice that, compared with female writers, male writers are much closer to country and earth. On the contrary, brilliant female artists mostly draw pictures of city women and the city life. I always believe that good men are peasants in hearts. Song Wen has a elaborate review in his essay, and he points out: “?Huanglin’s analyses on these phenomenon shows that, the reason why male writers don’t consistent with city is that traditional men are masters of agricultural life and civilization, while female writers’ identifying city much better can ascend to women’s liberation of country and traditions, in which they suffering deep oppression and owning no chances of expression. Opposed to men, women have no traditional fetters, so they melt in and get
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