What Jake's Lacking

Jake, both as an “above all” narrator and as an internally conflicted character, is constantly speaking from a place of insecurity. This specific form of hypermasculine insecurity is one that I can fairly confidently trace back to Jake’s unfortunate war wound that quite literally takes away his manhood. Jake is often overcompensating through his sparse narrative style and his homophobia/antisemitism/ racism and, through this overcompensation, I have actually learned to like him as a character significantly less. I also think that Jake’s overcompensation for his lack of (functional) genitals makes him an unreliable narrator, or at least an interesting perspective, for the other ~3 characters in the book that also lack what Jake specifically lacks. These characters of course being: Georgette, Frances, and Lady Brett Ashley. 

Georgette is a prostitute and not especially bright from the limited conversation we get from her. She is toted around by Jake before being abandoned in a bar in favor of Brett. Although Georgette is beautiful and feminine, this is shown to be more of a fault than working in her favor. 

Frances is Cohn’s ex-girlfriend who we meet briefly at the beginning of the book. While she is markedly smarter than Georgette, she uses this intelligence to manipulate and nag Cohn. Jake wonders why Cohn just sits there and takes it- bonus points because he’s insulting both Cohn’s lack of masculinity while also insulting Frances. 

Finally there’s Brett. She is introduced as quite a feminine figure, but offsets this by sporting a boyish hairstyle and calls herself “chap”. This is the only woman in the book that sticks around as a pivotal character in Jake’s story. I think it is especially interesting that the only woman in the book that Jake becomes infatuated with (although there don’t seem to be a whole lot of women to choose from) is one that puts just as much energy into coming across as “masculine” and detached as Jake does. 

It is an intriguing look into how Jake thinks about women, as well as men, when he forces himself to compensate for his war wound. If he, hypothetically, doesn’t think of himself as enough of a man with his war wound and without his manhood, how does he see women who weren’t born with one in the first place?

The Duality of Clarissa (contains spoilers for The Hours)

I thought that the juxtaposition between Sally’s character and Richard’s character in The Hours vs in Mrs. Dalloway was a really interesting one. Where Richard provided stability, yet some mundanity, to Clarissa’s life in Mrs. Dalloway, Sally filled that role in a more recognizable way in The Hours. In a similar respect, where Sally Seton was the pinnacle of romanticism in Mrs. Dalloway, Richard actually fills that role in his own poetic way in The Hours. 

However, this might reflect more on our Clarissa character in either form of the story being told than on the Richard and Sally characters. For instance, Clarissa is the one in both the movie and the book to romanticize that which they don’t have. In this way, “The Hours Clarissa” clung onto her past with Richard, with Richard even telling Clarissa that he’s essentially only staying alive for her. “Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa” inducts the reader into her life through the use of nostalgia and what-ifs, including but not limited to Sally Seton.

I think that by somewhat inverting the roles of these characters in The Hours, the watcher is forced to indulge in the what-ifs that “Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa” indulges in throughout the book. By having Clarissa unsatisfied in both the movie and the book in some way, it forces the watcher to understand that it's the societal roles that Clarissa is stuck in in both versions of her lives that ends up making her so unsatisfied. And it is these societal roles that carries in theme throughout The Hours, in all 3 of the women’s stories.