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Chapter 15: Mrs. Woolf
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
Oliver St. Ives offers Sally more coffee. His eager assistant pours her some. They’re talking about a potential future film that Oliver is excited about, though Sally isn’t sure it could ever get made. Oliver assures her that Walter Hardy, a novelist who is also at the lunch with them, can help get it made.
This chapter explores the character of Sally, who up until this point has mostly only appeared at a distance as a supportive partner. It soon becomes clear that Clarissa’s view of Sally is limited, and as much as Clarissa fears that Sally is a more sophisticated person who hangs out with movie stars, Sally herself doesn’t seem to feel comfortable in this environment.
Themes
Oliver describes how the film will be a conventional thriller with a gay man for the hero, but he can’t be tortured about his sexuality or have HIV. Oliver notices that Sally still doesn’t seem convinced by the pitch. She protests that she doesn’t even have any connections to Hollywood, but he says she probably knows the industry better than many people who do have connections. Oliver makes plans to discuss the film in more detail with Walter later. Sally realizes that the two of them never really needed her.
Oliver’s desire for acceptance, including the ability to play a gay character who is similar to a heterosexual character, resembles Sally’s own attempts to make her partnership with Clarissa resemble a heterosexual marriage. But Sally remains skeptical that Oliver’s plan can work, hinting at the problems with her relationship with Clarissa.
Themes
After lunch, Sally and Walter stand on a street corner. Walter comments that he’ll see Sally later that evening at five o’clock, and Sally wonders who invited him to the party. Walter goes into a store that sells formal shirts to buy a present for his boyfriend, Evan, and Sally ends up following him. Sally thinks about how Evan has been sick for a while. At one point he seemed likely to die, but now he looks more likely to live. She wonders if Walter has mixed feelings.
Sally’s thoughts about Walter and Evan seem to be related to her own difficulties in her relationship with Clarissa, which Sally avoids thinking about openly. Evan’s situation once again captures this pivotal moment in the HIV/AIDS epidemic when effective treatments first became widespread.
Themes
Sally watches Walter spend $400 on a shirt. Sally thinks about how many of her own gifts seem to fall short, although Clarissa never admits it. Sally and Walter leave the store and part ways. Sally wishes she could bring back a gift for Clarissa and truly tell her how much she means to her—although Sally and Clarissa freely say, “I love you,” she wants to say something less ordinary.
Clarissa frets about Julia not wearing the ring she gave her, and yet Clarissa herself struggles to appreciate Sally’s gifts. Sally’s thoughts here reveal the challenges of a relationship and how even traditional gestures like gift-giving or saying “I love you” are not enough to guarantee intimacy.
Themes
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Sally takes the subway downtown. She still wants a gift for Clarissa, so she decides to sop at a Korean market and buy some flowers—roses. When Sally gets back to the apartment, she can tell from Clarissa’s voice that something is wrong. Sally asks what’s wrong, and Clarissa mentions Louis’s recent visit and Julia’s visit with Mary. Clarissa notices that Sally bought roses, and they both laugh when they realize that it’s like an O. Henry story since Clarissa just bought roses too.
O. Henry was a short story writer who is perhaps best known for “Gift of the Magi,” where a man sells his watch to buy his wife a set of combs, and the woman sells her hair to buy him a watch chain. In a similar vein to that story, Sally gives Clarissa the one thing she needs least at the moment—more roses—and yet, the gesture ends up revealing that their relationship might still be deep after all, with the roses showing how the two of them appreciate the same things.
Themes
