The Hours

The Hours

Each of the novel’s characters sees himself or herself, most of the time as a failure.  Virginia Woolf, as she walks to her death, reflects that “She herself has failed…”  [p.4]  Richard, disgustedly, admits to Clarissa, “I thought I was a genius…” [p. 65]  Are the novel’s characters unusual, or are such feelings of failure an essential and inevitable part of the human condition?

        The novel’s characters are not unusual.  They suffer the same feelings of disappointment everybody experiences at some point in life.  The characters exhibit a range of emotions and exhibit vastly different reactions to the anguish of failure.  Cunningham showcases these different responses as he illustrates the eruption of self doubt in his characters.

        In the prologue of The Hours, thoughts of failure fill Virginia Woolf’s head as creeping insanity overcomes her.  “She herself has failed.  She is not a writer at all, really…She has failed, and now the voices are back,” [p. 4] Cunningham writes of the struggling writer as she nears her suicide.  Woolf cannot move beyond the tormenting cycle of thoughts about her failure.  The voices inside her head cause her too much pain.  She has thoughts and ideas to write, but the voices act as a barrier to any productivity.  Believing she cannot act like a normal being, Woolf walks to the river nearby and kills herself.

        Similarly paralleled in The Hours, Richard’s life nearly mimics Woolf’s.  Also a  writer, Richard suffers from AIDS, and he feels that his once successful ability to write poetry has disappeared.  Richard believes he is receiving the Carrouthers Prize, which is given to someone for a life’s achievement of work, because people pity a man dying of AIDS.  He too feels he has failed.  “Oh, pride, pride.  I was so wrong.  It defeated me,” [p. 66] Richard laments about his unsatisfied life.  Because he knows nothing but failure in his life, Richard kills himself.