Loss of Identity

"So now she is Laura Brown. Laura Zielski, the solitary girl, the incessant reader, is gone, and here in her place is Laura Brown." (pg. 40)

Loss of identity plays in important role in The Hours. Laura is not the only character to feel that she is losing who she is. Virginia feels herself slipping away while recovering from her "illness" in the country. Her illness has caused her to feel like a completelt different person, not Virginia anymore. Clarissa also feels as though she may not know herself anymore because at one point in her life, she sacrificed someone she might have been for a more safe and stable life. Instead of staying with Richard and living a life full of "living", she decided on Sally and an easy relationship that needed less work. She now looks back on the choice and wonders if she sacrificed who she really was for simpler life.