AGENDA:
In a well-developed blog post of paragraph answers with evidence from the text, comment on Discussion Questions 11-13 below:
11. Toward the end of
Clarissa’s day, she realizes that kissing Richard beside the pond in
Wellfleet was the high point, the culmination, of her life. Richard,
apparently, feels the same. Are we meant to think, though, that their
lives would have been better, more heightened, had they stayed
together? Or does Cunningham imply that as we age we inevitably feel
regret for some lost chance, and that what we in fact regret is youth
itself?
12. The Hours could on one level be said to be a novel
about middle age, the final relinquishment of youth and the youthful
self. What does middle age mean to these characters? In what essential
ways do these middle-aged people--Clarissa, Richard, Louis, Virginia
--differ from their youthful selves? Which of them resists the change
most strenuously?
13. What does the possibility of death
represent to the various characters? Which of them loves the idea of
death, as others love life? What makes some of the characters decide to
die, others to live? What personality traits separate the "survivors"
from the suicides?
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11. Cunningham is more implying that everyone is going to have a huge, massive regret that haunts them as they age. This regret is probably over a choice that would have ultimately changed their life. Clarissa and Richard are in love in a very deep and perceptive way that is cloaked by their past choices. As he faces death, their love is something they have to decide if they regret and will regret for the rest of their lives, or made their lives just as good after separating.
ReplyDelete12. Middle age to the three characters in The Hours makes the characters more wary of their choices, and more aware of their past. They don't enjoy aging. Clarissa and Louis resist the change most dramatically. They don't want to move on from the love of their past, a person they share in common- Richard. They don't want to accept they have chosen different paths that they have traveled as they have aged, and that they left a major part of their life, in terms of love, behind them.
13. Death is the most obvious and apparent motif in the novel. Every major character embraces death on a cognitive level, they all think about it. Virginia, for her characters and ultimately for herself, Laura in a hotel room, and Clarissa thinks of death through her love and best friend, Richard. The survivors, those who do not commit suicide in the end, have a deeper level of consciousness holding them back from say, jumping out a window. They have more internal conflicts they feel a deeper need to carry out. The others have, in most ways, come to terms with what their life has been. They are ready to move on into something they do not know.
11. I think they would been more happy being together. Once you reach that happy place in your life you usually want it to last for ever. And once that happy place is no longer there you might slip into depression, maybe a deep depression that your unable to come out of.
ReplyDelete12. When your middle aged you go through mid life crisis which causes you to do some of the most craziest things you never thought you would have done before. They start to realize that they are not as young as they use to be and only would get older. Which makes you have the fear of dying alone or being alone for forever. That's why it was good that Clarissa stayed with Richard and helped him out.
13. The possibility of death represents and escape or fear of something else. Virginia loved the idea of death because she was not that happy and didn't really have anything to live for besides her book after she finish it she committed suicide. unlike her Laura thought of suicide, but didn't do it because she has someone to live for which were her children.
11) I think that Cunningham was trying to imply the idea of regret coming with age because of Clarissa and Richard kissing. As they grew older they realized what they actually could of had if they would've worked on staying together. I don't think that they regret youth itself, its just the decisions that they made in their youth that hunts them the most.
ReplyDelete12) Middle-age to these characters is more realization than anything else. They start to see and regret things that they once did in their youth and that regret that they hold is now playing a huge part in their daily life. Clarissa resists aging the most because of the past love that she has for Richard that she just cant let go. She wants to still have the youthful love that she once had and she sees that its not something that she can have again.
13) All of the characters has had some encounter with death. Its an motif throughout the story. Virginia seems to have the greatest attraction to death compared to all of the other characters in the novel because of her passed experiences. Characters decide to live rather than die based on the things they have in life, they have other things they must deal with before they can say that they are ready to give into to death.
11) If Richie and clarrisa would've started dating back then, maybe he wouldn't have caught the aids complication and his life would've been prolonged, we get the sense that inside Richie truly loved clarissa even though he had a different sexual preference as he says "I love you clarissa" before he commits suicide, I don't believe Cunningham is implying that with age comes regret because it depends on if the person is ready for what comes after life.
ReplyDelete12)Virginia has o be the most character who doesn't take change well, regardless is that's because the voices in her head are telling her go back home or if something new jus isn't what she looks forward to as when she proposes to move back to London after being in distress in a place she didn't care to be.
13) There are characters happy with the thought of death being a way out of there misery in life and Richie is one of those characters who is contempt with death more than he is with living, and those who live on for the ones they lost and overcome there obstacles no matter the obstacle separates the survivors from the suicides.
FYI: Being gay doesn't cause aids. Also, Sexual "preference" should be "orientation".
Delete11. With the situation between Clarissa and Richard,Cunningham was implying that with age comes a great deal of nostalgia. As people grow older they inevitably feel regret in their lives about certain things. In Clarissa's case, she regrets her and Richard never working out. Although, this is a valid thing to wonder and regret, in reality they probably never would have worked out. It was too good to be true and they both had secrets, such as their other lovers.
ReplyDelete12. To the characters in The Hours, middle age is synonymous with being stagnant; no changes just the same thing everyday. Once they feel that their fate is set out for them, they become scared. A great example is Laura. Laura feels trapped in her fate of being a cookie-cutter wife. She then becomes scared and resistant, resulting in her ultimately leaving her family.
13. In the book, to many characters death is a beautiful escape. Virginia Woolf for example sees death as a solution to the voices in her head and she ultimately ends up taking her own life. This also applies to Richard who was extremely ill and he realized that he was living for Clarissa, not for himself. He also decided to kill himself. Both of these characters were struggling, whether it was mentally or physically or both. On the other hand, there are characters like Laura who consider death at one point but are too scared to follow through with it. She knows that she has a lot to lose and a lot of people counting on her, especially her family. This fear is the trait that separates the survivors from the suicides.
11. Cunningham is implying the regret of how young they both were and the decisions that they've done in the past. But as both Clarissa and Richard both grew older they start to see how deeply in love they are with each other, but as death comes closer to Richard they don't know if they regret for separating from each other was for the best or if that made it worse.
ReplyDelete12. The novel Hours is all about middle-age to these three main characters because they are all holding on to their youth past and seeing every mistake they have done, regretting it. The readers can see that Clarissa won't let go of the past the most, especially now that she is aging, her not wanting to let go of the love she had and still does for Richard.
13. The ideal of death for the three characters seem to be appealing for them. Especially with Virginia in how she starts to think about killing her book characters but in the end she didn't feel as happy as she was before and as she finished writing her book she ended her life. As for Laura and Clarissa they thought about killing themselves but couldn't do it, it was as if their conscience held them back from doing it.
11. I think that on the whole, Cunningham means to imply that life is filled with hundreds of missed chances that we wish that we had pursued and another thousand experiences that are permanent and forever wrapped up in a nostalgic haze. One that is filled with a euphoria that we can only hope of reaching ever again in our life. I think that more than anything, Cunningham is trying to say the sweetest moments will always be the ones that have already happened.
ReplyDelete12. At least in the case of Clarissa and Richard, youth was something that had brought them some of the happiest moments in their entire life and in their middle age they are burdened not only by the wants and demands of others, but also by the monotony of lives that seemingly have no purpose. While I think for Richard and Louis the issues of the present are so much more important to them than many of the moments in pasts times of their lives. Virginia herself is fighting to maintain her sanity and the will to live and Richard too is doing his best to keep her alive. And as such I think that Clarissa and Richard are more resistant to those changes brought on by middle age as it is so far away from what they had.
13.Richard holds death as an escape from a life that he no longer wants to live. He hates living in a dark apartment all alone, watching his health and sanity slowly but surely leave him and he only really lives for Clarissa, but after a time he can't even do that. While Virginia does not necessarily love and or want to die, she to needs to escape from the depression that she see's tearing her apart and in many ways, the people that she love's apart and so she makes the decision that seems to make the most sense as she no longer wants to hold Richard down by her perceived burden. This is in contrast to the beliefs held by people like Clarissa who thinks that at it's core life is about living for those around you who have a care about you and want to see you live. While Laura, finally thinks that you should live for yourself above those around you and that is one of her core motivations for leaving her family and finding a life that she loves.
11. We are meant to think that as we age we inevitably feel regret for some lost chance. Clarissa is meant to seem like what she regrets the most is growing up or at least growing up without Richard. When she is in the room with her daughter Julia she had just got done talking about Richard to Louis. Louis is obviously a big part of Richards past so talking to him put Clarissa in this state of reflection. She is talking to Julia and slips up and says that besides Richard, every other aspect of her life doesn’t make her as happy. She misses the peak of her life and the time she was happiest which was with Richard. She regrets having to grow up and out of that peak.
ReplyDelete12. These characters being middle age means growing out of the part of life when they were most happy. They wish they could be the way they were when they were young, ambitious and care free without as much responsibility. Louis differs from his youthful self because he’s not the same person he was when he was with Richard. “The young Louis water, who spent his youth trying to live with Richard, who was variously flattered and enraged by Richard’s indefatigable worship of his ass, and who left Richard finally”. He tells Julia he has found a new love, a student and that he “hasn’t lost it.” Virginia resists change the most because she used to live in London and then she moved to the little town and now she desperately wants to move back because that’s what she knows the best. She fears what the other town does to her.
13. The possibility of death seems to scare all of them but Virginia. Clarissa fears losing Richard to death, Laura fears taking her own life but Virginia is different. Virginia sort of envies it hoping wherever she goes after will be somewhat better than where she lives now. She doesn’t like the voices and what goes on in her head. She feels she is not in charge of her own life and so everything she is going through is what leads her to kill herself.
Rosalia Rosario & Aslin Gonzalez
ReplyDelete11. I think that the author was trying to get the idea of regret across to readers opposing to Clarissa and Richard kissing. As the two got older it made them seem like they can’t live without each other. The decisions they made to stay together just when they met when they were young made decisions that took a poll on their life.
12. When you’re in the middle age that is when everything starts to hit you. You get hit with things that impacted your past and now that will impact your future. You start to realize that you’re not a teenager anymore and it’s time to grow up because you’re not getting any younger. At first it was good for Clarissa to stay with Richard but now it’s like she can’t live without him literally.
13. The idea of death for the characters in the book seem to follow them everywhere. Whether there not happy or they just can’t take the idea of life anymore. Virginia in the story tries to kill herself probably because she was the most depressed. None of the characters in the book successfully committed suicide because they had to think about what was coming in their future life. Babies, a new town etc.
11. Cunningham is implying that everyone is going to do something that they regret and it's going to stick with them for awhile. Clarissa and Richard are in love and it haunts them because of their past choices. And as Richard is dying it seems like they have to choose if their love was something good and they won't regret it or if it is something that they would regret forever.
ReplyDelete12. In The Hours, middle age makes the characters more aware of their choices and what they did in the past. It shows that they really don't like aging at all. One example is Laura because she is afraid of being a housewife for the rest of her life and feels like that is the only thing she'll be able to do so that results in her leaving her family behind.
13. Death for all three characters seem to be an escape for them. The one character that feels this way is Virginia. It really shows when she starts to decide if she should kill the characters in her book but she ended up not doing it and letting them live. When she finished writing her book she ended her life because she said "The visionary always dies" Clarissa and Laura thought about ending their life but they couldn't do it.
11.With growing old you have some sort of regrets or your past that you are not able to change, as you age older and older your regrets begin to sink inside of you. Richard and Clarissa staying together only made their love seem ever lasting even with the decisions and regrets they hold.
ReplyDelete12.When your older you begin to get to that point in age where sickness can catch you at anytime. When Laura was at the hotel and couldn't take the pills she began to rub her belly and hold it which gave her reasons for not running away from life and her motherly duties. It made her remember why she cant leave the world just yet.
13.Each character in this book has some sort of fear but they tend not to kill them selves for the simple fact that they need to get through many other things in life before it all comes to a end. Killing yourself doesn't end the chances of life getting worse it eliminates the possible chances of them getting better.