Clarissa Vaughan- New York City 2000s
Clarissa Vaughan is a modern version of Clarissa Dalloway, living a very similar day. However, instead of setting up for a party in London after World War 1, she is in New York City in the late twentieth century. With this modern setting, Cunningham had to push Clarissa's life and behavior further to get the same reaction from society. The visual images of busy streets and parks in both Clarissa Vaughan and Clarissa Dalloway's lives furthers the connection between the two characters. With the modern society in the early twenty-first century, Michael Cunningham expanded the ideas of longing for acceptance and searching for happiness by applying Virginia Woolf's struggles from her novel (and life) to the updated issues that face many people today. When Mrs. Dalloway was written, it was a revolutionary novel because the kiss that Clarissa and Sally share is risque and daring for the time period. In an era more accepting of same-sex relations, Cunningham pushed the boundary in the same way by making Clarissa Vaughan have a woman lover whom she has lived with for eighteen years and birthed a child through alternative options.
Laura Brown- Los Angeles Suburb 1950s
Laura Brown is a simple housewife in the 1950's reading Mrs. Dalloway and relating it to her own life. This would be harmless if Mrs. Brown had not already been depressed and toying with the idea of either killing herself or leaving her family. Michael Cunningham writes of a woman who sees herself in the characters of Mrs. Dalloway, full of regrets and wondering how things could have been if she had refused to marry her husband. Cunningham successfully pushes the boundaries of society again when Laura kisses her neighbor, Kitty. The reaction from Mrs. Dalloway is represented through Laura Brown as she is a woman who still does not have many options in her time period. She is revolutionary, like Clarissa Dalloway, wanting to be independent from who she thinks is holding her back. By creating a character living in a period between Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Dalloway, and Clarissa Vaughan, Cunningham portrays the progression of freedom women have but also the similarities in their longing for answers to show them that they are happy.
Virginia Woolf- Richmond, England 1920s
Virginia Woolf lived in the same time period that she wrote the setting of Mrs. Dalloway. Exiled from London by doctors orders, Virginia becomes bored and lacking of excitement and meaning in her life. "On the other side is London, and all London implies about freedom, about kisses, about the possibilities of art and the sly dark glitter of madness," (172). The life of Virginia Woolf shows why she wrote about certain things in her novel. She was ultimately writing about herself leading up to her self-caused death. The imagery Michael Cunningham provides in his novel shows the seclusion of her house and how the gardens were meant to occupy her in a failed attempt to prevent her from wandering off. The large house surrounded by trees and flowers is meant to clear Virginia's head, but instead acts as a prison, keeping her from society. This contrasts Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughan who live in or near large cities in the middle of the excitement. Cunningham is expanding on the ideas in Mrs. Dalloway and showing that people can struggle with depression in any setting at any time.