Artistic Anxiety and the Pressure to Perform in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours

Abstract

Though they are not conventional visual artists, the characters in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours each engage in creative acts – Virginia writes stories, Laura makes a home for her family, Clarissa orchestrates a party – but these creative acts are ultimately unfulfilling for each of them. These creative acts are not simply unfulfilling, however; they also, more significantly, cause deep-seated anxiety as the women consciously or subconsciously recognize the divide between their “undisputed origin” (Trinh Minh-ha 1998, 649), their true selves, and the roles that they are expected to perform: successful author able to craft the perfect story, supportive wife and mother able to create a perfect cake and birthday celebration, and pleasant hostess able to create a warm, effortless, memorable party. The identity crises that these women experience are due in part, then, to societal expectations that press them to simulate, in the Baudrillardian sense, their lives to the point where the difference between their authentic selves and their performed selves becomes dangerously indistinguishable. These simulations are further reinforced by new names and corresponding identities that men have given them by way of nickname or marriage and are so devastating that they lead some even to suicide.