Time's Meandering Borders: Cunningham's The Hours

The Hours ruminates over the inescapability of time within the self - that each day is temporary but has the potential to exist forever in the mind due to the whims and motives of the individual. When Cunningham reflects on Virginia Woolf's final moments before she succumbs to the river and drowns, this idea of time's vulnerability within the hands of the individual is showcased; Virginia contemplates turning back, thinks "she could live on; she could perform that fatal kindness" (1998: 5) - she could stay alive for the sake of Leonard and Vanessa - but no, her decision has been made and she refuses to live within the realm of headaches and voices anymore. 

Indeed, without Cunningham needing to elaborate, the weight and gravity of the situation allows the reader to know with certainty that the day of Virginia's suicide will be immortalized in the minds of those that she loves, that her suicide note will linger in Leonard's mind: "I don't think two / people could have been happier till / this terrible disease came" (6).

Nearly at the end of the novel, another instance of time distortion occurs when Richard, Clarissa Vaughn's former lover and longtime friend who is dying from AIDS, throws himself from his apartment window when she stops by to check on him. The descriptions within the text are such that the reader intrinsically knows Clarissa's mind will lock onto this memory and replay it forever; even before Richard falls from the window, even before it becomes clear that he intends to do so, Clarissa feels "as if she is witnessing something that's already happened.