A selection of themes interconnecting the film and the modernist novel

1. The Hours
and the Modernist novel

2. The film was
inspired by
the novel byMichael
Cunningham’s1998
Pulitzer Prize-
winning novel having the
same Title.

3. three women of different generations
interconnected by the novel Mrs Dalloway by
Virginia Woolf. Clarissa Vaughan (Streep), a
New Yorker preparing an award party for her
AIDS-stricken friend and poet, Richard (Harris)
in 2001; Laura Brown (Moore), a pregnant
1950s California housewife with a young boy
and an unhappy marriage; and Virginia Woolf
(Kidman) herself in 1920s England struggling
with depression and mental illness while trying
to write her novel.

4. MaIN THEMES
• Suicide as a way of escaping problems and evading
the oppressive aspects of their lives.
• Memories as a link to past, a clue to understand
present events and feelings.
• The weight of social constraints as a limit to personal
growth
• A sense of disappointment with their expectations
and loss
• A large exploration of various feelings

5. • Revelation as a way of finding out a meaning
out of meaningless routines
• Search for a new kind of identity
• Time: the story is set on one day but it
acquires an essential role. The single moment
is more important than an whole existence
• There is no reward or punishment at the very
end but only a sense of loss or fear.

6. The
Modernist
Novel
focuses on some
ideas explored by
the film

7. MODERNIST FEATURES
• A reflection upon death
after the experience of
war
• A sense of spiritual
paralysis
• A sense of
disappointment
• A sense of loss
• Search for a new kind of
identity

8. • A single moment is more important than a life
(epiphany according to James Joyce)
• A personal inner conflict between social roles
and responsibilities and the true self
• Search for an authentic meaning behind
simple routines
• Escape: a desire to get rid of social
constraints and the difficulties to face when
trying to achieve this goal.