The Hours: Only Connect

Michael Cunningham's, The Hours, while a tribute to the legacy of Virginia Woolf also touches heavily on a common Bloomsburian theme, the importance of connections between people. Of the text's several characters, Richard Worthington Brown best demonstrates the vital nature of connectivity. Afflicted with terminal AIDS and often operating under the effect of numerous prescription medications, Richard's is a most tragic case. The dying poet appears (at least in the text) only to have regular meaningful interaction with his female friend, and onetime object of desire, Clarrissa Voughn. Abandoned by his former male lover, Louis, Richard lives alone in a shoddy apartment where even sunlight is barely permitted to shine. Yet, the awfulness ceases to end there. Richard's own mother, the main character named Laura Brown, is later revealed to have abandoned her family. A powerful influence in Richard's life, Mrs. Brown became both a figure of admiration and loathing in the man's published poetic works. As if to sprinkle sugary granules of misfortune upon Richard's undesirable cake of life, the reader also learns that the poet's father passed away of liver cancer and that his sister was the victim of a drunk driving accident. With none left close to him, save a caring friend whom is a constant reminder of a dream never to come true, Richard commits suicide by jumping from his apartment window down to the sidewalk below.

The deathly ill Richard was faced with a horrid reality, one he could not bear to weather alone, or even with the comfort of his only close friend. With no one to support him, the poet collapsed under the strain. The unsavory story of Richard Brown serves to underscore the need for humans to establish bonds with others of their species, and the terrible effects of connections ripped away by death or other misfortune. The Hours takes the classic Bloomsbury theme further, perhaps reading something like this: Only connect, it may just save your life or someone else's.