—Virginia humorously sees both every day and the profundity in life's events, p. 121, 1999, 4th Estate paperback edition. Mrs. Dalloway As Clarissa prepares for Richard's party, determined to give him the perfect tribute despite its probable triviality, she is visited by none other than Richard's old partner Louis. The visit mirrors those of Kitty and Vanessa in the other story vignettes. Clarissa is thrown off-kilter by the visit, as Laura had been by Kitty and Virginia had been by Vanessa. Characters in The Hours 1923 Virginia Woolf; Leonard Woolf, Virginia's husband; Vanessa Bell, Virginia's sister. Nelly Boxall, Virginia and Leonard's cook. Julian, Quentin and Angelica, Vanessa's children. 1949 Laura Brown; Dan Brown, Laura's husband; Richie Brown, Laura's son; Kitty, her neighbour. Mrs Latch, babysitter. 1999 Clarissa Vaughan; a 52-year-old publisher. Sally, Clarissa's partner; Richard Brown, Clarissa's friend, Laura Brown's son; Louis Waters, Richard's former lover, friend of Richard and Clarissa; Julia Vaughan, Clarissa's daughter; Mary Krull, Julia's friend. Major themes LGBT issues The Hours concerns three generations of questionably lesbian or bisexual women. Virginia Woolf was known to have affairs with women; Laura Brown kisses Kitty in her kitchen, and Clarissa Vaughan is in a relationship with Sally who was previously Richard's lover. Peripheral characters also exhibit a variety of sexual orientations. To some extent, the novel examines the freedom with which successive generations have been able to express their sexuality, to the public and even to themselves. As such, definable sexuality for the characters of Virginia Woolf and Laura Brown is hard to ascertain. It could be argued, as does the author Michael Cunningham himself on the DVD commentary of the film version of The Hours, that such characters born at later times in different circumstances they would come out as lesbians. For Virginia and Laura, it would have been extremely difficult to "come out". Such a position would have meant extreme consequences in societies where homosexuality was in many cases illegal, treated with extreme medical "therapies", and shunned by society. This can be understood to provide much of the undercurrent of anguish for the characters, particularly in Laura Brown's case. Without this understanding, Laura could be conceived as ungrateful or a drama queen (as indeed many readers regarded Virginia Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway when Mrs Dalloway was first published). Mental illness Cunningham's novel suggests, to some extent, that perceived mental illness can be a legitimate expression of perspective.