Franco Moretti states in The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture that “Even novels which are clearly not Bildungsroman or novels training are perceived by us against this conceptual horizon; we therefore speak of a “failed initiation” or “problematic training”” (Moretti 561). Although not a bildungsroman in the sense that it follows the trajectory of a youth's maturation, Michael Cunningham's The Hours presents Clarissa Vaughn as its own symbolic hero. She must navigate a community in crisis and understand how her sexuality has influenced her life choices and, therefore, the formation of her identity. The Hours inverts common conceptions of the structure of the bildungsroman: instead of focusing on a young person coming to terms with sexuality through maturation, this story reveals the most intimate retrospection and the "what if?" contemplation of an older Clarissa who questions and, in some ways, problematizes her identity by wondering what her life would have been like if her sexual and romantic relationships had turned out differently. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Breaking free from the confines of heteronormativity, this postmodern novel explores homosexuality through the engagement of a broad spectrum of characters who illustrate what it means to identify as queer or homosexual in a time of dramatic crisis. The setting of the novel, at least in the case of Clarissa's story, is a New York in crisis: the ravages of the AIDS epidemic have devastated those close to them, resulting in a "socio-cultural crisis and a violent reorganization of the power ". » (Moretti 560). The AIDS epidemic is therefore an invitation to reflect or reconsider the trajectory one's life takes under the influence of sexuality and choices concerning sexual activity. Clarissa is then invited to reflect on her past and present situation through her disparate interactions with these people, notably Richard, Sally and Julia, who are themselves at different stages of accepting their sexuality and its influence. For Clarissa, Richard represents a past love that he has never been completely free to explore; Sally is the lesbian lover with whom she has built a house for eighteen years. The two characters are positioned at opposite ends of a sexual spectrum on which Clarissa oscillates throughout her maturation, but ultimately, Sally gains Clarissa's commitment, publicly positioning Clarissa as a lesbian in a world in which homosexuals are placed under sociopolitical surveillance. The question Clarissa must therefore confront, as she watches her past love slowly succumb to the effects of AIDS, is what would have happened if they had been able to maintain a committed relationship with each other. other. Could Richard have contracted AIDS? Would she have found more romantic fulfillment in this relationship, as opposed to her relationship with Sally, which at certain points in the novel seems forced due to her habitual nature? The Julia-Clarissa dynamic essentially allows the novel to achieve bildungsroman status because both novels: “[excerpts] from a “real” youth, a “symbolic” youth, embodied…in mobility and interiority” (Moretti 555). Clarissa watches her daughter from a distance, the true youth of the novel who is nevertheless incredibly mature for her age – this mother-daughter pair does not have an intimate bond. Even though Julia's age positions her as an excellent example of a young person having to deal with the future of a post-crisis community, Julia's lack of interiority,.