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Chapter 11: Mrs. Dalloway
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Hours, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Passage of Time
Suicide and Mental Health
Marriage, Relationships, and Personal Fulfillment
Reading and Writing
Summary
Analysis
Laura drops Richie off with her neighbor Mrs. Latch, claiming she has to run an errand. In reality, she is making a new cake. After she finishes the cake and completes some other tasks for the day, she leaves the house, bringing along her copy of Mrs. Dalloway. The new cake she made looks much more elegant. She thinks about when her lips touched Kitty’s and realizes that she desires Kitty, although she also still desires Dan.
Laura’s decision to drop off Richie seems to be because she doesn’t want him to accidentally witness anything else, like when she just kissed Kitty. The new cake represents a chance for Laura to start over, creating something pristine to make up for the guilt she feels about desiring Kitty.
Themes
Even though the second cake is better, Laura still regrets its imperfections. She wants to go somewhere to read but can’t find a place, since in most places she’ll either have to pay money, be bothered, or be unsafe. The problem with public places like a library or a park is they feel too public for her. At last, she decides to pay for a hotel room.
Laura’s house is deserted, and yet she still feels the need to escape it, suggesting that her household chores have imprisoned her. Although Laura can be anxious, this passage suggests that Laura isn’t just imagining dangers and that, in fact, suburban life lacks places where a woman can go to have some privacy.
Themes
Laura goes first to a cheap motel, then decides that it might be too sleazy, and she wouldn’t know how to act. She goes instead to a nicer hotel for tourists and businessmen. She gets a double room, lying and saying her husband will be coming in an hour or so. She pays up front, then heads to her room.
This whole chapter strongly recalls Virginia Woolf’s essay “A Room of One’s Own.” The essay explores a range of feminist themes but ultimately centers on the idea that for a woman to pursue a creative activity like writing, she needs a private place for herself.
Themes
When Laura gets to the room, it’s clean, but she can tell it’s been used a lot. She begins reading Mrs. Dalloway, feeling she has finally left her life behind and is closer to Virginia Woolf than she’s ever felt before. She reads part of the book that makes her realize that a person can choose to die and that it’s possible—and maybe even probable—that someone ended their life in her hotel room. Laura says “I would never” out loud to herself, patting her pregnant belly. Nevertheless, Laura imagines Virginia stepping into the river with pockets full of rocks and thinks of how easy that would be to do.
Woolf’s essay “A Room of One’s Own” suggested that a woman needs freedom from interruptions in order to write well. In this passage, the privacy of Laura’s hotel room brings her closer to Woolf than she’s ever felt before. But while this feeling thrills Laura at first, it also has darker implications, since to be like Virginia Woolf is also to struggle with suicidal feelings. Once again, a character learns that getting what she desired (in Laura’s case, privacy) might not be quite what she expected.
Themes
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