THE HOURS

Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and screenwriter born on November 6, 1952.

He showed great potential to be a writer as a teenager, leading to him studying English
literature at Stanford University and later the University of Iowa for his graduate degree. His
foray into the literary scene began with the publication of his first novel, Golden States in
1984. He followed his debut with A home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood. He is
best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the
PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. In 2002, it was also adapted into a film of the same name and
the film was ultimately nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best picture and Best
Actress.
The Hours tells the story of three women in differing time periods: Virginia Woolf in 1923,
Laura Brown in 1949, and Clarissa Vaughn in the late 1990s. The novel starts with the day
Woolf decides to write her book entitled Mrs. Dalloway, and follows the lives of Brown and
Vaughn as they read the novel in the near future. An incredibly complex and profound story,
Cunningham effortlessly ties together the narratives of three vastly differing women in a way
that no other author has done before

CHARACTERS
Characters in Virginia Woolf’s Story
Virginia Woolf: Celebrated English novelist. Virginia is tormented by her headaches and
voices in her head. The Hours focuses on a day in 1923 when she lived in a suburb of
London. Though extremely intelligent and highly respected, she is overly protected by her
family, because they fear for her sanity. She has begun writing Mrs. Dalloway, a book which
she hopes will be her masterpiece.
Leonard Woolf: Virginia Woolf’s husband. Leonard is the editor and publisher of the
Hogarth Press, and he believes Virginia to be the most important writer of her generation.
Though occasionally testy and curmudgeonly, he never becomes angry with Virginia, though
he worries about her constantly. He looks out for Virginia’s health when she becomes too
distracted to do so herself.
Nelly: The cook in the Woolf household. Nelly is relentlessly domestic and stands in contrast
to Virginia’s distracted relationship with the house and its workings. Her practicality prevents
her from understanding Virginia’s dedication to her writing. She resents Virginia’s lack of
involvement in her own house.
Vanessa Bell: Virginia’s sister, a respected painter. Vanessa has a raucous, colorful, cheerful
life and is mother to three children. Though three years older than Virginia, she looks
younger than her sister because she is healthy and better adjusted. The two sisters are
extremely close, and Vanessa acts as one of Virginia’s caretakers.
Julian: Vanessa’s oldest child. Julian is fifteen years old and very handsome. He is Vanessa’s
favourite.
Quentin: Vanessa’s middle child, age thirteen. Quentin is not as handsome as Julian but is
kind, stalwart, and inherently good. Virginia feels an affinity for Quentin because of his
intelligence and sense of irony.
Angelica: Vanessa’s youngest child, age five. Angelica is nervous and distractible, and the
classic youngest child whose whims are indulged by her older brothers.
Ralph: One of Leonard’s assistants. Ralph is stout, earthly, and somewhat incompetent.
Marjorie: Another of Leonard’s assistants. Marjorie has a grating voice and is willing to do
the tasks nobody else wants to do, even though she doesn’t do them very well.
Characters in Clarissa Vaughn’s Story
Clarissa Vaughn: A lesbian editor who resides in New York in the late twentieth century.
Clarissa lives in a lovely apartment in the West Village neighborhood of New York with her
lover, Sally, and Clarissa’s daughter, Julia. She is cheerfully domestic and usually takes
comfort in her beautiful apartment and stable life. The illness of her friend Richard, however,
has caused her to reevaluate her choices in life, precipitating a midlife crisis of sorts. Richard
calls her “Mrs. Dalloway.”
Richard Brown; Novelist and poet, a gay man dying from AIDS complications. Richard and
Clarissa are best friends from college and former lovers. Before he became sick, Richard was
argumentative, intelligent and stubborn. He took pleasure in day-to-day existence and worked
this affection into his novels, which were experimental and only sporadically successful.
Richard is the adult son of Laura Brown.
Sally: Clarissa’s live-in lover of eighteen years. Sally produces an interview show on public
television. She is kind, steady, smart, and as domestic as Clarissa.
Louis: A friend from Richard and Clarissa’s youth. Richard’s ex-lover, Louis now teaches
drama in San Francisco. When Louis was young, he was very good looking, but he has aged
dramatically. He is sentimental and cries often. Louis feels jealous of Clarissa and Richard’s
intimate relationship. He is fundamentally regretful about his life and believes that there is
“very little love in this world.”
Julia: Clarissa’s daughter, age nineteen. Julia is wilfully boyish and independent. Though
straight, her friendship with lesbian activist Mary Krull has caused her to shave her head and
wear combat boots. She is not as close with her mother as Clarissa would like them to be.
Julia deals with difficult social situations gracefully.
Mary Krull: Friend of Julia’s, lesbian activist and radical feminist. Mary comes across as
humourless and judgmental, and thinks that Clarissa’s domestic lesbianism is a futile attempt
to be normal in a homophobic world. She is desperately in love with Julia.
Walter Hardy: A friend of Clarissa and Richard’s. Walter has managed to avoid contracting
HIV even though his lover has the virus. Though Walter means well, Richard resents that he
has stayed healthy when so many of their friends are sick.
Evan: Walter’s boyfriend. Evan has HIV but has responded well to the drugs he takes.
Olivier St. Ives: Movie star and friend of Sally’s. Oliver was an established action star before
he came out of the closet in the magazine Vanity Fair. He wants to produce a thriller with a
gay protagonist and tries to get Walter Hardy to write the script\
Characters in Laura Brown’s Story
Laura Brown: A housewife who lives in Los Angeles in 1949. Laura is a young wife and
mother of a three-year-old son. She lives in an attractive house and has a nice husband but
constantly feels that she should have a different life. A bookworm, she sees herself an
outsider who lives in exile from a life of domestic normalcy.
Richie: Laura’s three-year-old son. Richie will grow up to be Richard Brown, the novelist
and friend of Clarissa Vaughn. Richie loves his mother completely and wants to be with her
all the time, and he closely observes everything she does. He is extremely sensitive and prone
to becoming upset.
Dan Brown: Laura’s husband. Dan was a war hero and much more popular than Laura in
high school. When he returned from the war, he fell in love with Laura and married her. Dan
is consistently kind and appreciative of Laura. He feels content with his life and has high
hopes for the future.
Kitty: Laura’s next-door neighbour. Kitty is very self-assured and has a kind of confident
magnetism. Though Laura idealizes Kitty, she has been unable to have children and has to go
into the hospital for tests that may not bode well for her future.
Ray: Kitty’s husband. Ray has an unremarkable job and is mildly incompetent.
SUMMARY
The Hours follows three different generations of women affected by the classic novel Mrs.
Dalloway. It follows three women through one day in their lives. The story begins with a
prologue that details the suicide of Virginia Woolf. The novel then jumps to New York City
in the year 1999 as Clarissa Vaughn leaves her apartment to buy flowers as she is hosting a
party that evening in honour of her best friend Richard. Then readers are introduced to a third
woman, Laura Brown, who lives in Los Angeles in 1949. She is in the middle of reading Mrs.
Dalloway. Clarissa goes to visit Richard where he lives, in a decrepit apartment building. She
reminds him about the party. The novel then flashes back to Virginia in the process of writing
the novel. She decides that her protagonist, Mrs. Dalloway will kill herself.
Clarissa returns home and greets her partner Sally. She wonders what her life would have
been if things worked out between her and Richard and imagines her life would be much
more exciting than the one, she leads now with Sally. Laura and her son have baked a cake
for her husband but she is disappointed. Thereafter Laura’s neighbour Kitty comes by and
tells Laura about her surgery and the two women kiss briefly.
She then leaves her son with a neighbour and drives to a hotel to read Mrs. Dalloway. She
realizes how easy it would be to simply give up on life, but vows that she would never do that
as it would destroy her family. Laura returns and picks up her son and returns home and she
serves cake and dinner for her husband. She watches her husband and son together and
decides this may be the perfect moment in her life. Clarissa goes to Richard’s apartment to
help him get ready for the party and she finds Richard sitting on the ledge of one of the
windows. He tells Clarissa the hours are too much for him- living through one after another
while he feels so ill. Clarissa begs him to come inside. Richard jumps to his death
THEMES
Sexuality and Sexual Identity
With one of its main narratives set at "the end of the twentieth century" a time when
gay communities in America were still being devastated by the AIDS crisis, The Hours is a
testament to one of the most tragic periods of LGBT history. At the same time, the novel is
also an affirming exploration of lesbian identity, same-sex desire, and sexual expression in
many forms. As Michael Cunningham works to plumb the depths of human experience,
sexuality and sexual identity—and their socio-political ramifications, too—are often center
stage.
Love
Love comes in many shapes throughout the novel: we see romantic love between
straight, gay, and lesbian partners; we see lifelong friendships that have required loving
devotion and care; we see marriages in which sexual attraction takes a backseat to other
forms of companionship; we see unrequited infatuation; we see the bonds of love between
parents and children; and, above all, we see love for life itself.
Love—in any number of forms—is part of the human experience, and The Hours is all about
exploring the ties that bind its characters to one another, and to the world they inhabit.
Time
Time is a major theme in a book called The Hours. As characters go about their lives in the
novel, some of them feel intensely grateful for the hours they've been given on this earth,
while others find it a struggle just to make it from one hour to the next. Time marches on for
all of them, but each of them has to decide how long to keep marching with it.
The Human Fascination with Mortality
The three main characters in The Hours search for meaning in their lives and evaluate
suicide as a way of escaping the problems they face.
CONCLUSION
Virginia, Clarissa, and Laura are incredibly sensitive and perceptive to the world around
them. Each moment causes them to critically evaluate how they feel about living, so they
constantly consider suicide as a way of evading the oppressive aspects of their lives.