Hours/Dalloway #15

“From far away, she can hear a dog barking” (215).

Cunningham uses the imagery of a dog barking to create the idea of isolation. Mrs. Brown has separated herself from reality through her reading and worrying. A dog barking suggests the idea of something being very far off in the distance; this can be interpreted to mean that Mrs. Brown has distanced herself from the rest of life, leading to her isolation from the world and people around her. This isolation ultimately leads to her attempt at suicide. Cunningham used the imagery of a dog barking not only because it creates the appropriate image for this scene but because it relates the moment to a similar one in Mrs. Dalloway where Septimus Warren Smith hears dogs barking in the distance. Using this same image in a parallel situation creates a string connecting both books. Cunningham did not write The Hours as an original book; rather, he created it to be his version of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. By using several of the same images as Woolf, he lets his readers know that it is his intent to produce a version of the previous novel.

Photo Credit:

"How Much Astrological Influence Affects My Creative Visualization? | Learn Creative Visualization." Learn Creative Visualization | Visualize and Materialize. Web. 25 Oct. 2010 <http://learn-creative-visualization.com/2010/02/06/how-much-astrological-influence-affects-my-creative-visualization/>.