The Hours (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Prologue

The prologue to The Hours focuses on Virginia Woolf in 1941, just as World War II has begun. "She walks purposely toward the river," feeling as if she has failed as a writer and noting the signs that her mental illness is returning. She gathers stones that she places in her pockets and wades out into the river. Suddenly, the current pulls her under. Back at their home, her husband Leonard finds the suicide letter she has written, telling him that she is certain she is losing her sanity and insisting that he has given her "the greatest possible happiness." Her body floats downstream and is caught on a piling. The specific time and place of this event is not identified in the novel, but the historical Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse near her Sussex, England home on March 28, 1941.

Part I

The novel moves back and forth between three stories that focus on three different women: Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughan, and Laura Brown. It begins in New York City at the end of the twentieth century with fifty-two-year-old Clarissa, who needs to buy flowers for the party she is giving for her best friend and former lover Richard in honor of his winning the prestigious Carrouthers Prize for poetry.

The narrator notes that Richard had given her the nickname Mrs. Dalloway when they were at college together, insisting that her own name was not appropriate for her. As she walks to get the flowers, she thinks about her relationship with Richard, which began when she was eighteen. Clarissa buys the flowers and heads for Richard's apartment.

In Richmond, England in 1923, Virginia Woolf begins the novel, which will become Mrs. Dalloway, with her heroine determined to get flowers for her party that afternoon, just as Clarissa Vaughan does. Leonard, who has nursed her through her illnesses, "does not demand what she can't provide" and so is always gentle with her. He believes that she will be recognized as a great author and so does all he can to encourage her writing. She hopes that she will be able to persuade him to move back to London, but Leonard worries that the city will exhaust her. She feels this morning in a perfect creative state.

In her home in Los Angeles in 1949, Laura reads the beginning of Mrs. Dalloway, "trying to lose herself." She feels guilty for reading on her husband Dan's birthday, thinking that she should be downstairs fixing his breakfast. She senses that it will be difficult to believe in herself this day but determines that she will bake Dan a cake. She tells herself "she does not dislike her child, does not dislike her husband. She will rise and be cheerful."

Laura goes downstairs where Dan and her son Richie are happy to see her. After her husband leaves, she is alone with Richie, who, she feels, demands too much of her. She fights the urge to go back upstairs and read and tells Richie that he can help her bake the cake.

Clarissa passes a corner where she remembers that she and Richard had argued, about what she cannot remember. Soon after, they had stopped being lovers. She arrives at Richard's apartment and finds that he is having a bad morning. Richard is dying of AIDS, which has ravaged his mind as well as his body. He is not sure he has the will or the strength to accept his award, which he insists, he is getting because he has AIDS and not because of his literary talents. His last book, which includes a character based on Clarissa, was not well received. Clarissa tries to assure him that the award is well deserved and insists that she will help him get through the evening.

Virginia has had a successful morning writing, but she worries that her novel will not be good enough. She thinks that her heroine will die, possibly kill herself. She continually fears that the headaches that announce the onset of another period of mental instability will return. She determines to move back to London, better to die there "raving mad than evaporate in Richmond."

Laura and Richie begin to make the birthday cake. At this moment, Laura experiences an overwhelming sense of love for him and feels "she is precisely what she appears to be: a pregnant woman kneeling in a kitchen with her three-year-old son." When Richie makes a mistake, he crumbles, but a few kind words from her restore him. Laura wonders why he is so fragile and for a moment yearns to be free of him. Her feelings pass, however, and she returns to her earlier sense of tranquility as she finishes the cake and determines that "[s]he will not lose hope," that she can live happily.

Part II

As Virginia walks in Richmond, she plans what will happen to Clarissa and thinks that perhaps she will love a woman but will eventually "come to her senses, as young women do, and marry a suitable man." When she returns to the house, she has a disagreement with the cook and wonders why she always feels intimidated by her servants and cannot establish a good relationship with them.

In the apartment, Clarissa thinks about her relationship with Sally who has just left to have lunch with a film star. She determines that she is satisfied with her life, at least for this moment. Yet in the next, she feels "trivial" because the film star has not asked her to join them. Her thoughts wander back to 1965 to her past relationship with Richard and his other lover Louis and wonders what life would have been like if she had not left Richard, feeling a "sense of missed opportunity." She acknowledges her first kiss with Richard defined the most perfect moment of her life.

Laura is disappointed with the cake she has made, which is less than the perfect vision she had had of it. She thinks of her husband's solid goodness and declares that she wants to be a good wife and mother. Kitty, her neighbor arrives, which gives Laura a pang of excitement. When she tells Laura that she may have a uterine tumor, Laura embraces her and the two share a brief kiss, which Richie observes. After Kitty leaves, Laura has the overwhelming desire to return to her book and the alternate world it offers. She turns instead to the cake and throws it in the trash, determined to make a better one.

Virginia's sister, Vanessa, and her children arrive for a visit. Vanessa's robust health is in stark contrast to Virginia's frailty. After the children find a dying bird, Virginia helps them create a death bed for it in the garden. As she thinks that she would like to lie down in the bird's place, she determines that Clarissa will live after all.

Clarissa plans to give Richard "the best party she can manage." As she prepares, Louis arrives, whom she has not seen in years. She tells him about Richard's ill health and they discuss his recent book and their relationships with Richard and each other when they all lived together in a beach house. Louis claims that he has fallen in love with one of his students and then suddenly begins to sob because he knows it is only an affair. Julia, Clarissa's teenaged daughter, arrives and soon after, Louis leaves, promising to come to the party. He wonders what would have happened if he had not broken off his relationship with Richard.

Part III

Laura drops her son off at a babysitter and drives to a hotel where she can be alone. She feels like a failure after making the second cake that did not meet her expectations. In the room, she thinks about committing suicide, noting the freedom it would afford her, but rejects the idea, insisting that she could not cause her family to suffer. She admits that at times "she loves life hopelessly," yet she envisions Woolf's suicide and how easy it would be for her as well.

Virginia drinks tea with Vanessa, experiencing a perfect moment of happiness. She determines that someone else but not Clarissa will die. Behind her cook's back, she kisses Vanessa, which "feels like the most delicious and forbidden of pleasures." In a quick chapter, Julia arrives with her radical lesbian friend and Clarissa thinks about her relationship with her daughter. The next chapter reverts to Virginia at the end of the day after her sister and children have left.

Virginia again worries that her novel will not be any good and that the headache is returning. She sets out for London, which she feels will replenish her. As she waits for the train, Leonard finds her, and gently berates her for leaving without telling anyone where she was going.

A brief chapter follows, chronicling the meeting between Sally and the film star, ending with her back at the apartment where she and Clarissa experience a perfect moment of harmony together. In the next chapter, Laura picks up Richie who bursts out in tears when he sees her. On the way home, Richie expresses his love for her in a frantic tone, seemingly knowing what Laura has been thinking. She tells him that she loves him, which eases him.

Part IV

Clarissa arrives at Richard's apartment to help him get ready for the party. She finds it flooded with light and Richard, looking "insane and exalted" perched on the window sill. When he announces that he does not think he will be able to make it to the party, Clarissa, fearful that he will jump, insists that he does not have to go. Richard admits that he feels like a failure, tells Clarissa he loves her, leans further out the window, and falls five stories to the pavement. Clarissa runs down and stays with his body for a while, caressing his shoulder and thinking about how much she had loved him.

Dan blows out the candles on his birthday cake and claims that it is "perfect." Laura feels as if she is experiencing a perfect moment of happiness, looking at the scene in her dining room, and expresses hope for the future. But the moment soon passes.

Virginia thinks about returning to London, which Leonard has agreed to do. She decides that Clarissa will have loved a woman when she was young and will always remember a kiss that they shared. Virginia again determines that Clarissa will not die because she will be too in love with life. Another person, "a deranged poet, a visionary will be the one to die."

Laura prepares for bed where her husband is waiting for her. She sees the sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet and thinks how easy suicide would be, wondering if the moment she experienced earlier would be enough for her. She goes to bed, feeling detached and far away.

An elderly Laura arrives at Clarissa's apartment and the two discuss Richard, Laura's son. Clarissa has mixed feelings about Laura who eventually abandoned her family. They both claim that they wish they could have helped Richard more. Clarissa notes how ironic it is that Laura, who contemplated suicide, is still alive when the rest of her family has died. As she gazes at all of the food she has prepared for the party, Clarissa feels as if Richard is truly gone. She hopes that Richard will be remembered for his work but recognizes that "it's far more likely that his books will vanish along with almost everything else." Yet Clarissa feels comforted by thinking of the perfect moments people sometimes experience, which provide them with hope and the will to go on.

Media Adaptations

• A celebrated film version of The Hours was produced in 2002 by Miramax and Paramount, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore.