The Hours

Clarissa Vaughan is a 52-year-old publisher living in New York City at the end of the 20th century. If any of the three main characters can be called the protagonist, it’s Clarissa Vaughan: the first and last chapters follow her, and she shows the greatest development out of any of the characters. As her nickname suggests, Clarissa shares many traits with Clarissa Dalloway, the titular character of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway; however, Clarissa also diverges from her. Like Woolf’s Dalloway, Clarissa is in her fifties, bisexual, and concerned with social status. Somewhat unlike the married Mrs. Dalloway, who is haunted by a feeling of lost love from her young adulthood when she kissed a young woman named Sally, Clarissa lives with her partner Sally and pines for a lost love with Richard, with whom she shared the pond-side kiss at the age of 18. These mirrored fates highlight how Clarissa Vaughan’s more socially progressive world allows her to live with a woman, an option unavailable to Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa has an affinity for literature—she publishes novels and is proud of her friendship with Richard, a distinguished poet—yet her true love is life itself. On her morning walk, she revels in her raw perception of things themselves, beyond any language that could describe them.