Theme Of Suffering In The Hours

Pain Cannot be Measured by Surroundings In life, pain can be prominent and valid no matter what the situation is, everyday struggles are a battle for some while others collapse under their own mental instability. This idea is projected In the novel The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. The story begins with a dark introduction in which Virginia Woolf commits suicide. Throughout the prologue you piece together why Virginia has come to such a grave conclusion to end her own life. The act of suicide continues to resurface throughout the novel and contributes to the overall theme of the stories within it. Although the characters in the novel are in contrasting situations, they experience suffering while facing everyday challenges. The struggling …show more content…
The pain she experienced in her everyday life became too much for her as she battled her mental illness Each obstacle she faces in her story has a foreboding undertone knowing that she will eventually commit suicide. Every action within her story is used to display her unhappiness and dissatisfaction with herself and her life. During the day Virginia finds herself fighting the voices inside her head and the imminent headache that sparks her breakdowns. In her darkest moments she recounts how, “The devil is a headache...the devil sucks all the beauty from the world, all the hope, and what remains when the devil has finished is a realm of the living dead- joyless, suffocating” (167) Virginia is consumed by her pain and eventually decides that there is no reason left for her to fight. She could no longer concentrate without the voices infiltrating her mind and she decided the only way to escape was through death. She recounts in her suicide letter to her husband Leonard that there was no other way out, “I shan 't recover this time… so I am doing what seems the best thing to do.” (6) She no longer wanted to burden the lives of others and she knew that she was not going to get better. Virginia’s suicide is the basis for the theme in the novel that although Virginia’s life did not appear to be unsatisfactory she could not cope with the feelings that were occurring inside of …show more content…
A continuous theme of suicide lingers within each life despite the differing stories. Virginia, Clarissa, and Laura all led such contrasting lives but each of them experienced a longing for something more that could not be achieved. Virginia committing suicide in the opening of the novel introduced the entire theme that no matter what situation a person is in, they can still experience a great amount of pain that cannot be measured by their surroundings. Each character suffered in a different as the overlaying theme of death wrapped itself around each character 's story. As Clarissa watched the man she loved die and as Laura hungered to no longer exist, both of their stories tied back to suicide that began the whole story, Virginia