The Hours
Clarissa Dalloway is the title character of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Woolf depicts her as a middle age upper-classed wife who is sometimes extremely sensitive and sometimes extremely shallow. Throughout the day Mrs. Dalloway plans a party that she is going to throw and keeps reflecting back on past romances. Clarissa Vaughan is the title character of the Hours by Michael Cunningham. Cunningham creates Vaughan as the Mrs. Dalloway of the late twentieth century. She is a middle aged upper-class woman who is also at times extremely sensitive and at times extremely shallow. Like the Mrs. Dalloway of Virginia Woolf, the Mrs. Dalloway of Michael Cunningham faces many issues throughout her day of planning the party, such as time, freedom, love, pain, and letting go of the past. Clarissa Vaughan is the only on of the heroes of this book that lives in out current times, with an unconventional family structure, and with a contemporary lifestyle. She lives in a time that encourages greater freedom of expression and desire for women. Because of this, Cunningham gives her strength in the novel and she is able to make an impassioned examination of the choices she has made in life. Clarissa Vaughan is the deliberate contemporary urban tale of Mrs. Dalloway; in fact the author calls her Mrs. Dalloway throughout the novel. Just like the classic Mrs. Dalloway, Vaughan is planning a party. Clarissa is planning a party for her dying best friend Richard. He has won the Caruthers prize and is being honored that day. Throughout the day Clarissa keeps thinking about the past and her romance with Richard, who is homosexual. She is in a loving relationship with Sally but is still emotionally involved with Richard. Throughout the day she keeps pondering about what could have happened between them. Clarissa is a very strong woman; her character is portrayed throughout the novel by the other characters she interacts with during her day of planning. Her interactions with those characters show the reader Clarissa’s real emotions without her saying them. The first character we see in the novel is Walter Hardy; she meets him while on her way to pick up the flowers for the party. We see Walter Hardy as the person she didn’t invite but had to because he would have gotten upset. We see Clarissa as a bit jealous of Walter who makes a lot of money and hasn’t many worries. He takes good care of Evan, his lover who is in the same predicament as Richard, however Evan is getting better and the two are going dancing that night while Richard isn’t getting better despite the exhausted care of Clarissa.