Clocks

Hey, it's no surprise that a novel called The Hours contains a symbolic clock or two.

The first of these is the clock that sits on Laura Brown's bedside table. It has a green face in a black Bakelite setting, and Laura thinks of that setting as the clock's "sarcophagus" (3.4). That's a pretty grim metaphor, and it reflects Laura's somber state of mind. Pregnant, depressed, and deeply unhappy with her life, Laura finds it a struggle to perform her roles as wife and mother day after day. She seems to be stuck in limbo, and her clock symbolizes that unpleasant sensation of being trapped in dead time.

The second symbolic clock in the novel is England's famous Big Ben (it makes a pretty similar appearance, by the way, in Mrs. Dalloway as well). As Virginia Woolf fantasizes about disappearing to London for a few hours, she thinks to herself:

It seems that she can survive, she can prosper, if she has London around her; if she disappears for a while into the enormity of it, brash and brazen now under a sky empty of threat, all the uncurtained windows […], the traffic, men and women going lightly by in evening clothes; the smells of wax and gasoline, of perfume, as someone, somewhere […] plays a piano; as horns bleat and dogs bay, as the whole raucous carnival turns and turns, blazing, shimmering; as Big Ben strikes the hours, which fall in leaden circles over the partygoers and the omnibuses […]. (15.11)

In this captivating passage, Big Ben stands at the epicenter of London's exuberance and vitality. It's a whole lot like the sun, all things considered, with the "raucous carnival" of London life turning and turning around it, forever and ever amen. In Virginia's fantasy of London life, Big Ben serves as a paradoxical symbol of the timelessness of the city. The clock will strike the hours forever and ever, and there will always be something lively and wonderful going on as it does—whether you're included in those wonderful goings-on or not.