The Hours Analysis

The Hours is set in three different places and times: Richmond, England in the early 1920s; Los Angeles, California in the late 1940s; and, finally, New York City's West Village at some point in th...

Although the novel's narrator sure does like to get his free indirect speech on—that's speech that taps into the thoughts and feelings of the novel's fictional characters—it's clear that the na...

Above all, The Hours is a work of realism. Michael Cunningham does his best to capture the everyday thoughts and feelings of relatively ordinary people living relatively ordinary lives. Of course,...

Taking its cue from the work of Virginia Woolf and her fellow modernists, The Hours works to gain insight into the thoughts, feelings, and unconscious motivations of its characters. Throughout the...

Throughout The Hours, Michael Cunningham works to capture some of the stylistic elements that make Virginia Woolf's writing so memorable. At the same time, he also makes sure to put his own stamp o...

Time is of the essence in The Hours. Some characters, like Richard Brown, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf, struggle with the thought that their present circumstances will continue day after day, ho...

"We'll hunt for a third tiger now, but like the others this one too will be a form of what I dream, a structure of words, and not the flesh and bone tiger that beyond all myths paces the earth. I k...

Remember how we said that despite all of its tragedy and sadness, The Hours still ends by affirming the value of life? Well, the novel's closing paragraphs really drive that point home. Just hours...

Just like Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, The Hours spends a lot more time on its characters' thoughts and feelings than it does on their actions. The end result is that you get to follow along com...

In all three of the novel's separate plotlines, things get underway in the morning. Laura Brown and Virginia Woolf each get a slow-ish start as they ease gently into their days, while Clarissa Vaug...

Because The Hours is a work of realism that focuses on the ordinary, everyday lives of its protagonists, it may seem strange to think of it in terms of Booker's "Overcoming the Monster" plot. We ge...

For all three of the novel's plotlines, the first act runs from the early morning until around lunchtime. In the morning, the protagonists' days seem bright and full of promise, but that slowly cha...

Although the novel version of The Hours describes Laura Brown as a "dark," "foreign-looking" woman, the fair-skinned redhead Julianne Moore plays her in the film adaptation. (Source)At one point in...

PG-13There aren't any steamy bedroom shenanigans in the novel's present tense, but its characters certainly spend their fair share of time thinking about sex. On the day of her party, Clarissa Vaug...

Vita Sackville West (Prologue.1)Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1.4)Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1.4)Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway(1.4)John Ashbery (1.22)James Merrill (1.22)Adrienne Rich (1.22...