Value Of Happiness In The Hours

A question that can be answered by the book The Hours by Michael cunningham is what is the value of your happiness in society? Both of the main characters in the book are fighting something in their life that compromises their happiness, and the book does a very nice job of demonstrating the answer to the question. Clarissa Vaughan is an ordinary woman with a lover who is also a woman. She finds no shame in her sexuality, but often finds herself living in her mother and sister’s shadows. Both of her mother and sister are wealthy, well known ladies who are practically drooled over by other people who live in the town. On page 20, it says, “... Clarissa has, at heart, become a society wife, and never mind the fact that she and Sally disguise

She married her husband out of what she felt was an obligation to her husband to repay him for fighting in World War II. Even though she got two children out of the marriage, she is still not happy with her family life. Laura feels that if she were to life the life she actually wanted, the people around her would judge her and that her family would disown her. Eventually she gets so unhappy that she contemplates suicide. On page 151, the narrator says, “It is possible to die. Laura thinks, suddenly, of how she- how anyone- can make a choice like that. It is a reckless, vertiginous thought…” After she says this, she goes on to think of what everyone would think of her after she was gone. For Laura, every single decision is made based off of the society around her, but she never realizes that no matter what, if she is truly happy, then the people around her will pick every single thing to ridicule about her until she isn’t happy anymore. The book The Hours answers the question, “what is your happiness worth in society?” by providing different levels of sadness caused by people surrounding the main characters and showing the different ways that they react to those. You can choose to ignore them, like Clarissa did, or you can allow them to push you farther and farther past what your true self is, like Laura