Clarissa Vaughan’s and Richard Brown’s path in the movie The Hours

Abstract

The movie The hours (directed by Stephen Daldry, 2002), based on the novel by Michael Cunningham (The Hours, 1998), was a success of public and critics. It was nominated for the 2003 Oscar in nine categories, including best movie and best adapted screenplay. Both novel and film deal with the intertwining stories of three women linked by Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf, 2003 [1925]). Each women is in a different period: the first woman is in the beginning of the twentieth century, the second, in its half, and the third, in the end of the same century, in the book, and in the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the movie. Grounded on French Discourse Semiotics, we analyze the last woman’s path in the movie. She is Clarissa Vaughan, an editor who lives in New York and takes care of her friend and former lover Richard, a terminal AIDS patient. We aim at unveiling the actantial roles manifested by these two characters. One of the results is the role of Manipulator-addresser performed by Clarissa, who tries to convince Richard to fight for his life. However, Richard is aware of his impotence. This relationship initiates interesting configurations, until it culminates in Richard’s total rejection of his role as Clarissa’s addressee. Besides rejecting her manipulation, he ends up performing the role of Anti-subject, committing suicide. We also use concepts from Tensive Semiotics, which allowed us to reach some results which demonstrate the values linked to life and death, according to each of the two characters. The results show that for Clarissa life is emissive and life is remissive. For Richard it is the opposite, for him life is remissive and death is emissive.