The Hours (novel by Michael Cunningham) | Summary & Description

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They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link font-12 "> The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</span></div> <div class="last-updated font-12 font-serif"> <span class="text-gray-700"> Last Updated: <time datetime="2025-02-28T00:00:00CST" >Feb 28, 2025</time> •</span> <a class="byline-edit-history" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Hours-novel-by-Cunningham/additional-info#history" rel="nofollow">Article History</a> </div></div> </div> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-outline-blue border rounded-sm shadow-sm mobile-toc-button gtm-mobile-toc-inline-button d-none d-sm-block js-sections-inline-button module-spacing btn d-lg-none"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Table of Contents </button> <div class="d-flex d-sm-none flex-row"> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-outline-blue border rounded-sm shadow-sm mobile-toc-button gtm-mobile-toc-inline-button js-sections-inline-button module-spacing"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Table of Contents </button> <button class="ai-ask-button btn btn-sm border-2 btn-outline-red-400 border-red-400 module-spacing js-inline-ai-ask-button p-10 ml-5"> Ask the Chatbot </button> </div> <div class="js-qf-module qf-module px-40 px-sm-20 py-15 mx-auto module-spacing font-14 bg-gray-50 rounded"> <div class="facts-list mt-10"> <div class=""> <div class="js-fact mb-10 line-clamp clamp-3"> <dl> <dt>Awards And Honors: </dt> <dd><a href="/topic/Pulitzer-Prize">Pulitzer Prize (1999)</a></dd> <dd><a href="/art/PEN-Faulkner-Award">PEN/Faulkner Award (1999)</a></dd> </dl> <button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-gray-50" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"> <em class="js-content link-blue">(Show more)</em> </button> </div> <div class="text-center"> <a class="btn btn-sm btn-link p-0" href="/facts/The-Hours-novel-by-Cunningham"> See all related content </a> </div> </div> </div> </div><span class="marker before-article"></span><section data-level="1" id="ref1"><span class="marker PREMOD1 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph"><strong><span id="ref1334559"></span>The Hours</strong>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/novel" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">novel</a> by American writer <span id="ref1334560"></span>Michael Cunningham, published in 1998. It won a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/winners-of-the-Pulitzer-Prize-for-fiction-2227349" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Pulitzer Prize</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/PEN-Faulkner-Award" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">PEN/Faulkner Award</a>, and it was adapted as a <span id="ref1334561"></span>2002 film starring <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Meryl-Streep" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Meryl Streep</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicole-Kidman" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Nicole Kidman</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julianne-Moore" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Julianne Moore</a>.</p><span class="marker MOD1 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD2 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">An intricate reworking of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Woolf" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Virginia Woolf</a>’s classic 1925 stream-of-consciousness novel, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mrs-Dalloway-novel-by-Woolf" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true"><em>Mrs. Dalloway</em></a>, which describes a day in the life of a London socialite as she prepares for a party, Michael Cunningham’s <em>The Hours</em> splits Clarissa Dalloway’s internal monologue into the third-person narratives of three women. Clarissa Vaughan is a middle-aged <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/lesbianism" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">lesbian</a> living in contemporary <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/New-York-City" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">New York City</a>. To help establish the links with Woolf’s <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="precursor" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precursor" data-type="MW">precursor</a>, she is nicknamed “Mrs. Dalloway” by Richard, a prominent gay poet with whom she has shared a long and deep friendship. In another time and place, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Los-Angeles-California" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Los Angeles</a> housewife Laura Brown reads <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em> and other novels to fight the emptiness of suburban motherhood in the late 1940s and finds herself deeply shocked by her own moment of lesbian desire. Meanwhile a fictionalized Virginia Woolf frets over the writing of <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em> itself. As Clarissa prepares a party to celebrate Richard’s receiving a prestigious literary award, Laura tries to invest herself in her young son, and Woolf struggles to navigate illness in order to complete the work around which Cunningham’s novel is structured.</p><span class="marker MOD2 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD3 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">As does its model, <em>The Hours</em> describes a single day in the lives of each of its protagonists. However, this novel uses alternating chapters for each woman. During the day, Clarissa buys flowers for the party and visits Richard, who is suffering with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/AIDS" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">AIDS</a>. She is troubled by her partner Sally’s planned luncheon with a movie star and reminisces about the summer that she had a <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="romantic" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/romantic" data-type="MW">romantic</a> relationship with Richard. In the meantime, in 1921 Virginia Wolff is thinking about the writing of <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em> and interacting with her husband <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Woolf" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Leonard</a>, while in 1949 Laura would prefer to keep reading <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em> and to ignore her husband’s birthday, but she and her son Richie work together to bake a birthday cake for him. Each woman is somewhat dissatisfied with her life.</p><div class="module-spacing"> </div><span class="marker MOD3 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD4 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Later, Laura’s neighbor visits and asks Laura to watch her dog while she is in the hospital. Laura spontaneously kisses her and is surprised by the emotions the kiss evokes. Virginia’s sister, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vanessa-Bell" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Vanessa</a>, arrives before she was expected, catching Virginia off guard, and Clarissa is surprised by a visit from a former lover of Richard’s. Laura throws out the birthday cake and bakes a second one. She takes Richie to a babysitter and checks into a hotel to have enough privacy to continue reading <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em>. Virginia decides to take a train to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/London" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">London</a>, but Leonard finds her at the station. In the conclusion to the stories, Virginia decides that Mrs. Dalloway will choose life, and another character will commit suicide; Richard throws himself out a window when Clarissa comes to help him get ready for the party; and Laura, Richard’s mother, comes to Clarissa’s home.</p><div class="one-good-fact-module"> </div><span class="marker MOD4 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD5 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Cunningham reproduces Woolf’s anatomy of the mourning of lost possibility—her heroine Clarissa Dalloway remains haunted by the unexplored lesbian connection. Clarissa Vaughan’s successful long-term relationship and urban social freedom become the <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="mundane" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mundane" data-type="MW">mundane</a> background against which her youthful relationship with Richard and a single, ecstatic kiss shine all the more intensely. The uncertain way in which the eventful complements ongoing ordinariness permeates the novel, as it meditates on the alchemical process through which temperament and experience act on each other to create our worlds.</p><span class="marker MOD5 mod-inline"></span></section> <span class="md-signature font-12"><a href="/contributor/Anna-Foca/9837649">Anna Foca</a></span> <span class="marker end-of-content"></span><span class="marker after-article"></span></div> <div id="chatbot-simplify-root"></div> <div id="chatbot-root"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ai-dialog-placeholder"></div> </div> </div> <aside class="col-md-da-320"></aside> </div> </div> </div> </div> </article> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> <div id="md-footer"></div> <noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5W6NC8" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>  <script> window.ap3c = window.ap3c || {}; var ap3c = window.ap3c; ap3c.cmd = ap3c.cmd || []; ap3c.cmd.push(function() { ap3c.init('ZO4siT4cLwnykPnzZWJtd3Byb2Q', 'https://engage.email.britannica.com/'); ap3c.track({v: 0}); }); ap3c.activity = function(act) { ap3c.act = (ap3c.act || []); ap3c.act.push(act); }; var s, t; s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = "https://engage.email.britannica.com/app.js"; t = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t); </script> <script class="marketing-page-info" type="application/json"> {"pageType":"Topic","templateName":"DESKTOP","pageNumber":1,"pagesTotal":1,"pageId":683078,"pageLength":574,"initialLoad":true,"lastPageOfScroll":false} </script> <script class="marketing-content-info" type="application/json"> [] </script> <script src="https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-134/js/libs/jquery-3.5.0.min.js?v=3.134.9"></script> <script type="text/javascript" data-type="Init Mendel Code Splitting"> (function() { $.ajax({ dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: 'https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-134/dist/topic-page.js?v=3.134.9' }); })(); </script> <script class="analytics-metadata" type="application/json"> {"leg":"D","adLeg":"C","userType":"ANONYMOUS","pageType":"Topic","pageSubtype":null,"articleTemplateType":"MEDIUM","gisted":false,"pageNumber":1,"hasSummarizeButton":false,"hasAskButton":true,"hasAiTopQuestions":false,"hasSimplifyButton":false} </script> <script type="text/javascript"> EBStat={accountId:-1,hostnameOverride:'webstats.eb.com',domain:'www.britannica.com', json:''}; </script> <script type="text/javascript"> ( function() { $.ajax( { dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: '//www.britannica.com/webstats/mendelstats.js?v=1' } ) .done( function() { try {writeStat(null,EBStat);} catch(err){} } ); })(); </script> <div id="bc-fixed-dialogue"></div> </body> </html>

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The Hours (novel by Michael Cunningham) | Summary & Description | Britannica