MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM’S THE HOURS

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THE HOURS-Laura and Kitty’s kiss Kitty nods against Laura’s breasts. The question has been silently asked and silently answered, it seems. They are both afflicted and blessed, full of shared secrets, striving every moment. They are each impersonating someone. They are weary and beleaguered; they have taken on such enormous work. Kitty lifts her face, and their lips touch. They both know what they are doing. They rest their mouths, each on the other. They touch their lips together, but do not quite kiss. It is Kitty who pulls away. “You are sweet,” she says. Laura releases Kitty. She steps back. She has gone too far, they’ve both gone too far, but it is Kitty who’s pulled away first. (Cunningham, 110)

The Hours- Laura and Kitty’s kiss Mfo Mfo

The Hours- Virginia’s kiss Here is Nelly with the tea and ginger and here, forever, is Virginia, unaccountably happy, better than happy, alive, sitting with Vanessa in the kitchen on an ordinary spring day as Nelly, the subjugated Amazon queen, Nelly the ever indignant, displays what she’s been compelled to bring. Nelly turns away and, although it is not at all their custom, Virginia leans forward and kisses Vanessa on the mouth. It is an innocent kiss, innocent enough, but just now, in this kitchen, behind Nelly’s back, it feels like the most delicious and forbidden of pleasures. Vanessa returns the kiss. (Cunningham, 154)

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The Hours-Richard’s death The apartment is full of light. Clarissa almost gasps at the threshold. All the shades have been raised, the windows opened. Although the air is filled only with the ordinary daylight that enters any tenement apartment on a sunny afternoon, it seems, in Richard's room, like a silent explosion. Here are his cardboard boxes, his bathtub (filthier than she'd realized), the dusty mirror and the expensive coffeemaker, all revealed in their true pathos, their ordinary smallness. It is, quite simply, the tenement apartment of a deranged person. (Cunningham, 195)

The Hours-Richard’s death He seems so certain, so serene, that she briefly imagines it hasn't happened at all. She reaches the window in time to see Richard still in flight, his robe billowing, and it seems even now as if it might be a minor accident, something reparable. She sees him touch the ground five floors below, sees him kneel on the concrete, sees his head strike, hears the sound he makes, and yet she believes, at least for another moment, leaning out over the sill, that he will stand up again, groggy perhaps, winded, but still himself, still whole, still able to speak (Cunningham, 200).

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The Hours-Richard’s death The candles are lit. The song is sung. Dan, blowing the candles out, sprays a few tiny droplets of clear spittle onto the icing's smooth surface. Laura applauds and, after a moment, Richie does too. 'Happy birthday, darling', she says. A spasm of fury rises unexpectedly, catches in her throat. He is coarse, gross, stupid; he has sprayed spit on the cake. She herself is trapped here forever, posing as a wife. She must get through this night, and then tomorrow morning, and then another night here, in these rooms, with nowhere else to go. She must please; she must continue (T. H., 205)

The Hours-Richard’s death " It is possible to die. Laura thinks, suddenly, of how she- how anyone- can make a choice like that. [...] She could decide to die. (T.H., 151)

The Hours-Richard’s death She strokes her belly. I would never. She says the words out loud in the clean, silent room: ‘I would never”. She loves life, loves it hopelessly, at least at certain moments; and she would be killing her son as well. She would be killing her son and her husband and the other child, still forming inside her. (T. H., )

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