The Hours by SparkNotes

Author:SparkNotes [SparkNotes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Mrs. Dalloway/Mrs. Brown

Summary: Mrs. Dalloway

As Clarissa returns home with the flowers, she bumps into Sally in the hallway. Sally tells Clarissa that she is going to lunch with Oliver St. Ives. In the hallway, Clarissa feels sad, and wonders about her quick switch from joy to sadness. She thinks about Richard and how he is disappearing into insanity. When she enters the house, she thinks about the party and feels better. The kitchen brings a feeling of sudden dislocation, and she feels as if she doesn’t belong there. All of a sudden, she considers breaking up with Sally and moving out so that she can feel happy. The feeling passes quickly and she feels in place again. While listening to the messages on the answering machine, Clarissa feels badly that Oliver didn’t invite her to lunch. The feeling of being passed over feels a little bit like death, and Clarissa thinks that the world has started to ignore her. As she puts the roses into water, she thinks that she needs to just be happy being alive.

Clarissa remembers the summer that she and Richard were lovers. Their romance would not have been possible had they not moved into Louis’s aunt and uncle’s house at Wellfleet for the summer. She wonders if she should have stayed with Richard and discovered another future for herself. Though happy with her life, she has a special affection for Richard as the person she loved when she was young and her future was full of possibility. She thinks of the moment that she kissed Richard by the pond and realizes it was not a promise of something more to come, but a moment that mattered in itself.

Summary: Mrs. Brown

Laura and Richie’s birthday cake for Dan does not turn out as well as Laura at hoped. Rather than an exquisite work of art, the cake looks like any other homemade cake. Laura thinks about the presents she has to wrap for Dan and how happy he will be as he opens each one. She admires him for his ability to enjoy simple pleasures and wishes that she could just want to be loved by Dan the way he wants to love her. As she considers this, she realizes that she would not want to be crazy like Virginia Woolf.

The Brown’s next-door neighbor Kitty stops by to say hello. Because Kitty was prettier and more popular in high school, Laura feels threatened by her. As she sits down in the kitchen, Kitty comments that Laura’s cake is “cute,” which upsets Laura. Laura thinks Kitty has befriended her because she is married to a man as attractive and respected as Dan. Despite the fact that Kitty has the magnetism of a movie star, her husband is perceived as a disappointment and the couple have not yet been able to conceive a child.

While Laura and Kitty sit and chat about coffee brands, Laura longs to open up to Kitty and find out if she feels the same feelings of confusion and alienation about the domestic life of a housewife.

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