(the previous version was wrong, because I did not understand at all the task. I hope this will be more correct.)

The most interesting  1^st term activity, for me, was reading Michael Cunningham’s The Hours.

Our task was to read the novel and make the structural analysis. Then we had to take out modernist and post-modernist aspects by comparing the novel with Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway extracts in our book and also, The Hours movie.

The aspects of the novel I prefer, is the  break between people’s identity and their social position.

As the character of Laura Vaughn perfectly shows, people’s social position do not communicate who people actually are. She does not feel better as a mother and she needs to escape from her daily routine. The hotel where she goes to read Mrs Dolloway, represents her own way to escape the reality. Cunningham shows the need, for everyone, to have a “hotel” where we can found ourselves.

Virginia Woolf character is tormented by mental illness, she hears “the voices” and needs to take refuge in writing. But, she is not able to control her writing, is something that happens to her. I think Cunningham meant that sensitive people do not found easily their own “hotel” and, as Virginia Woolf, they could commit suicide.

Besides, Cunningham creates three characters that represents three main roles in literature: writer, reader and actor. 

The meta-narrative intention is pointed out by the connection of each character to the story of Mrs Dolloway: the reader can feel the emotions of the character described, but at the same time, he can feel trouble of the writer and, of course, the pleasure of reading.

To sum up, reading Michael Cunningham’s novel was a beautiful experience because he contemporaneously creates in the reader a multiplicity of feelings. The reader (I, of course) can see different points of view at the same time of the same action.