It's probably not going to come as a surprise to you that 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.
Questions About Time
- Roughly how much of The Hours takes place in the present of its characters' lives, and how much of it takes place in the realm of memory?
- Which of the characters seem to be the most burdened by time?
- Which of the characters are greediest for more time?
Chew on This
For Laura Brown and Richard Brown, time is an oppressive force. Because they are so unhappy in their situations, it's distressing for them to think that things will continue on in the same way hour after hour and day after day.
Even though she's technically younger than Clarissa Vaughan, Virginia Woolf worries more about the inevitable moment when her time will "run out." It's not that she's afraid of death, exactly: what she's afraid of is a relapse into the illness that will ruin her life and take her from herself. For this reason, it's hard for her not to feel like every day might be her last.