Life is composed of the time in which we breathe and live and exist. With each tick of the small hand our identities, mindsets, and events within life can change in an instant. Jeanette Winterson identifies this idea as the time that is spent within the mere hours of one’s life. Hours that prolong anxiety, or capture beauty, or reveal truth. These hours contain and hold much depth within their course.
“I watched the lights going off at some windows, on at others. Was she in his bed? What did that have to do with me? I ran a schizophrenic dialogue with myself through the hours of darkness and into the small hours, so called because the heart shrivels up to the size of a pea and there is no hope left in it.” (Winterson, Written on the Body)
Within the hours of the night, Winterson shows that each thought and second holds meaning for her. As she talks back and forth with herself she sees that she is driving herself mad in the attempt at love with Louise. These instances in Written on the Body emphatically compliment Michael Cunningham’s ideas about the hours spent in life. The same value is assigned to each passing moment. These single moments in time are viewed as moments that could change the course of life. Minor details are drawn out in an attempt to grasp the moment’s entire meaning. Nothing should be taken for granted here; this time is sacred.
“These were my thoughts as she slept beside me and if she had any fears she did not reveal them in those night-time hours. I looked at her lying trustfully in the spot where she had lain for so many nights. Could this bed be treacherous?” (Winterson, Written on the Body)
Just as there are hours that are extremely significant, there are also those that stretch in tedious, painful ways. These hours rip at our souls and seem as though the seconds last a lifetime and yet nothing happens in these slight moments. Winterson finds herself in a place in which she has no idea how to escape from. She sees these hours as being wasted away and, ultimately, as hours of absolute confusion and fear. This concept of the hours spent within the life of a human being diverges from Cunningham’s view of the hourse. He constantly expressed how a single day holds enough significance to reveal a lifetime of a person. The hours, in his mind was not meant to be wasted away by any means, it was to be explored and used as various turning points within someone’s life, not some mere passing of the time.
While both authors express “the hours” within their novels, both do so in distinct ways. Jeanette Winterson spends most hours confused and paces the time away as she undertakes her mind-boggling predicament at hand. Whereas, Michael Cunningham has his characters soak up each and every second possible, each and every trivial detail stitched within the fabric of a single day.
I agree with you that Winterson is showing the narrator is driving herself mad with Louise the way she pays attention to all the minor details. The moments, as you said, are drawn out to give the scene much more meaning that would have been missed if the author had skipped over the details. Both Winterson and Cunningham both do a remarkable job explaining the importance of the hours in each of their novels. Its how the story, I believe, is told. Time is sacred as you said, and the writer’s both took this very seriously and did a good way of explaining this concept to their readers.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the seconds to the characters can last a lifetime. This really reflects life itself. I have found myself many times waiting for the hours to end when only the seconds ticked by. Hours are never wasted in the book, as you have said, and both writers never wasted a second to explain a side of their narrators that we wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. I also agree that both writers have a very distinct way of spending the hours in their books, with Cunningham spending more time on the seconds that provide new problems for his characters, while Winterson spends the hours with her narrator contemplating the situations.
It's funny because as I was reading your blog post, I was thinking to myself, weird... I remember reading somewhere something about how some hours "feel" longer than hours in moments of pain and yet, overall, nothing really happens in those moments. I was going to comment on your post and "share" it with you, then I realized that you were the one that said it. I found it particularly interesting that you mention that because it made me realize that when I've felt, or was going through, loss or pain from romantic relationships, I did/do tend to just sit, draw out, and agonize every second. But in retrospect, had I somehow managed to make myself a fly on the wall and watch, there would be no obvious physical signs of how I felt inside. If anything, I would just be sitting in a stupor, or laying in my bed motionless.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, what I would like to add is that the hours spent “in between” that is in between the intense moments of life, are belittled although they are arguably as important as the big events themselves. I think that it really is all about the little things that make the big picture/big event so monumental.
(P.S. I tried to comment on your blog a few weeks ago, but for some reason, it got deleted twice. Just thought you'd like to know.)