Michael Cunningham and Characterization

September 28, 2026

To understand the process Michael Cunningham uses when working with his characters, one must first have an appreciation of Virginia Woolf’s handling of characterization. To be more precise, we can look at Woolf’s characterization techniques in her book, Mrs. Dalloway, to see her influence on Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Hours.

In her book—the working title was The Hours—Woolf lets her characters reveal themselves through the experience of the journey of their minds instead standard descriptions. For instance, Clarissa Dalloway is slowly introduced through her thoughts, memories, sensations, associations, and her perceptions of other people. In this manner, Woolf shows her from the inside out while allowing her past and present to coexist. Woolf’s free indirect discourse permits a third-person narrator to enter a character’s consciousness in an imperceptible manner. By using memories to reveal important scenes of the past rather than presenting them in backstories, she moves the story along seamlessly without stopping it. This perfected technique was used in some of her other works too.

Cunningham took much of the basis for The Hours from Woolf’s iconic novel. And he made use of her characterization as well, while giving it a more modern treatment.

In the book, Cunningham employs a stream-of-consciousness narrative style and makes extensive use of internalizations to present in-depth revelations of his characters. His intense descriptions bring his characters and scenes to life. By braiding multiple character stories, multiple years, and multiple story locations throughout the novel, Cunningham presents the story through a deep analysis of his characters that mimics Woolf’s style.