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PROLOGUE STRUCTURE - THE HOURS by M. Cunningham

The Hours prologue deals with Virginia Woolf's suicide. She's a famous writer of twentieth century and she has written the book Mrs. Dalloway, the central point of the novel. Michael Cunningham anticipates the end maybe to increase the curiosity and, during the reading, to make reflect the reader on the sense and on the causes of her tragic and definite solution.

The prologue can be divided in 6 parts.

The first one has an introductory function: the writer displays one of the three principal character of the novel, Virginia Woolf, and the time of the prologue scene, 1941, the Second World War. By the first lines of the prologue, it can be already understood that Virginia is going to kill herself because Cunningham writes:"She walks purposefully toward the river, certain of what she'll do" and "She has left a note for Leonard, and another for Vanessa", probably two important people to her.

Furthermore, this part of the prologue explains Virginia's actions since she leaves her house when she immerses herself in the river, describing in detail all that she sees: downs, the church, a scattering of sheep, the sky, a farm worker, puddles, a fisherman. She also hears bombers droning in the sky and voices into her mind, causing her terrible headache. The novelist focuses on sensitive perceptions as if Virginia wanted to taste every single moment of the last hour of her life.

The second piece of the prologue deals with Virginia's last minutes of her life and the reader can understand the way she'll commit suicide: she is searching for a stone to put into the coat pocket in order to immerse herself in the river and drown herself with the weight of the stones.  

Also in this part, the writer focuses on the detailed description of the stone and of the water.   

When she goes in the water it seems she is in doubt what to do: she thinks to Leonard and to Vanessa, she knows she can come back to home in time, avoiding any suspect, she stops to reflect and to contemplate the sky, the landscape, the fisherman and the river, but she's headache, she hears the voices and so she decides to go on. "Here, then, is the last moment of true perception".

The third part of the prologue deals with the moment of suicide. Virginia steps or stumbles forward and the current wraps her with strong energy.

The next passage is acclimatized in Virginia's house, more than an hour later. The function is to introduce Virginia's husband, Leonard. The writer changes the setting and the time in order to makes the reader see Leonard's reaction to the reading of the note, left in the living room by his wife. He understands immediately what his wife has done and so he leaves the house and goes toward the river.

In the fifth part, the writer talks about the Virginia's situation, who is fluctuating in the water, between leaves, grass and mud. Then she stops against a piling of the bridge.

In the last part of the prologue, the reader can see that the live of all other people goes on inevitably, without realize Virginia Woolf's death.