Cunningham brought Mrs Dalloway to America in the twentieth century. Cunningham's Mrs. Dalloway has independent jobs, gay people who get along well, and daughters from artificial insemination. Such a woman has completely surpassed Woolf's call for "a house of her own and an income of five hundred pounds a year". She is completely independent in terms of lifestyle, economic status and even reproduction, and she has the freedom of choice. , also made a free choice. From the outside, Mrs. Dalloway's independence is the highest form of women's independence. It should be said that this complete independence is the goal of all women's movements.
Not only is Mrs Dalloway in charge of her own life, she takes care of the life of her former love, Richard. Richard suffers from AIDS, is caught in hopeless same-sex love, and has no desire to survive. She supports his writing, takes care of his life, promotes his poetry, and it can be said that without her there is no him. Richard without Mrs Dalloway is unbelievable. Their relationship, on the surface, is that Richard is completely attached to her. This is probably another goal pursued by the women's movement: to transform women's dependence on men.
Mrs Dalloway's strength is admirable. However, it is clear that the author Cunningham is not convinced by the toughness of this appearance, and does not appreciate Mrs. Dalloway as the fruit of women's liberation. Richard was not grateful for Mrs Dalloway's care. He was obsessed with death, bored with everything, and furious at Mrs Dalloway's elaborate celebration of his poetry award. He eventually fell to his death before the party began, leaving Mrs. Dalloway to face the unmanageable mess alone.
For Richard, his life has long been meaningless, as he said to Mrs Dalloway: because of you I'm surviving. In the end, however, Mrs. Dalloway's fetters had no effect. Their love has long since receded. Not only did he no longer love her, but she no longer loved him. There is no necessary connection between them. They should no longer have responsibilities and obligations to each other. Mrs Dalloway said: People live for others. However, this other person need not be him Richard. Moreover, for Richard, who was abandoned by his mother at a young age, living for others is really a questionable proposition. Therefore, he did not accept Mrs. Dalloway's affection. He walked neatly.
Mrs Dalloway's independence and strong sense of responsibility are called into question by Richard's departure. Are these qualities themselves not as desirable as we think they are? Was all the women's movement and emancipation useless from the time of Woolf to the time of Cunningham's life? I don't think so. Cunningham gave us hope in the daughter of Mother Richard and Mrs Dalloway.
Richard's mother seems to be an incompetent mother, who was tempted by Woolf's novel to commit suicide but finally had no courage and could only abandon her husband and abandon her son and go abroad. However, she possessed a quality, courage and skepticism that Mrs. Dalloway did not possess. Before she ran away, she had a seemingly happy family and a decent and decent life. She was well-fed and depended on her husband and son. In this case, it is difficult for most women to think about life further, and even if they think, it is difficult to truly realize the limitations and absurdities of this kind of life. But Mrs. Brown, Richard's mother, was able to truly recognize the oppression of life and try to change it. Change is painful because it means letting go of everything you have. She did, and she was ready to give up everything and end her life. However, at the last moment she changed her mind. She is not afraid to die, but death means betrayal. Betrayed her husband and son, and spent the rest of their lives restless and remorseful. She didn't want to. It is always more difficult and painful to blame oneself than to blame others. She finally chose to leave. Trade betrayal in form for loyalty in substance. She freed herself by running away, as well as her husband and son. From now on, she is just an irresponsible wife and mother to them, she is not worth missing, the best way is to forget her. After running away, Mrs. Brown was just an ordinary woman, not as dazzling as Mrs. Dalloway. But even being an ordinary self is better than being a delicate doll. Mrs. Brown's strength comes from the heart, and Mrs. Dalloway's strength is only on the outside.
Mrs. Dalloway is lonely at heart, so she needs Richard, a job, a lover, and a daughter. Only after this heavy armor can she feel the real sense of life. Richard represents the dream of her girlhood. Now that love is gone, time has passed. Only by grasping Richard can you keep that dream, even if it is an impossible bubble. Although Richard's life depends entirely on her, in fact, she is the one who is attached, and she is spiritually attached to Richard. Unlike Mrs Dalloway, Mrs Brown is independent in spirit. I think the author uses the comparison between Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Dalloway to tell us that true independence comes from the spirit, and the ultimate goal of women's liberation is to be independent of others in spirit. Property, work, and lifestyle should be subordinate to the spirit of Independence and not as a fig leaf of spiritual loneliness and emptiness. However, Mrs Brown's actions had in fact hurt her family, and Mrs Brown was to blame for Richard's tragedy. So, how can women have spiritual independence and stable and harmonious family relations at the same time? Cunningham didn't seem to find the right way. Or perhaps, this is an unanswerable question. But Cunningham gives us a looming hope in Mrs Dalloway's daughter.
The artificially inseminated test-tube baby does not know the biological father, and the mother is openly gay. All these are enough to make a person with a weak heart live in low self-esteem and depression for life. But Mrs Dalloway's daughter is optimistic. She understands her mother and respects her choices. She also loves life and accepts the difficulties and imperfections of life. We don't know how she will lay out her life, but, at least, we are relieved to see that although we cannot provide a final answer for women's liberation, our efforts are not ineffective, because our times At least one such happy and healthy soul was created.
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