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.