The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway
The major plot lines of both novels are largely similar, only details and the writing style prove to be unique.
- The setting of both novels take place over the course of one very important day for the characters. In Mrs. Dalloway there are two stories that are in the same town and time period, and in The Hours, there are three stories in different places in the United States and England, and during separate generations.
- Clarissa Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughan, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf are all either having some sort of party or entertaining people at their home. Mrs. Dalloway and Ms. Vaughan have the most similar parties, to celebrate a loved one's accomplishments, buying flowers themselves, and asking old acquaintances to join even though the loved one will not appreciate it.
- While Clarissa Vaughan and Clarissa Dalloway buy flowers, a loud noise causes confusion on the street. "...when a huge shattering sound comes from the street outside....'No,' she says, and she turns away from the window with a certain elderly rectitude, holding her armful of flowers just as the ghost of her earlier self, a hundred years ago, would have turned from the rattle and creak of a carriage passing by..." (26).- Clarissa Vaughan
- The parties are used to show to the visitors that the hostess is confident in themselves and doing well. However, it is clear to the reader that the hostess is most definitely not fine and is on the verge of a break down.
- The imagery of flowers is present many times during both novels, as well as apparent pressures from society pushing them to conform to their ideals.
- A main character struggling with mental illness and drowning under the stares and judgement of others commit suicide by either flinging themselves or gracefully falling out of a window onto concrete below.
- Both novelists use visual imagery of symbols and encounters with both strangers and friends to show how each main character copes with their mental situation or search for happiness.
- Death can be found throughout both books from characters contemplating ending their lives and looking at the contrast between living and dying.
- As for writing style, Virginia Woolf denied the novel of chapters, instead constantly jumped between characters thoughts and memories without warning. Cunningham, however, had a more organized approach, separating each of the three main characters into chapters and methodically switching stories until they became intertwined. Both writers used the art of the human mind's train of thought and recollection of memories to tell the story and give background information.