You.

“It isn’t failure but it requires more of you, the whole effort does; just being present and grateful; being happy (terrible world).  People don’t look at you on the street anymore, or if they do it is not with sexual notions of any sort.  You are not invited to lunch by Oliver St. Ives.  Outside the narrow kitchen window the city sails and rumbles.  Lovers argue; cashiers ring up; young men and women shop for new clothes as the woman standing under the Washington Square Arch sings iiiii and you snip the end off a rose and put it in a vase full of hot water.  You try to hold the moment, just here, in the kitchen with the flowers.”  (Cunningham 94).

This passage is a very important one in conveying the themes of Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours.”  This is the only passage in the book that makes repeated use of the word “you.”  By reusing this word, it implies the universality of this theme; the theme of growing old.  Every person, everywhere, is subject to growth and aging, and eventually, death.  As Clarissa Vaughn tries to prevent the flowers from wilting by putting them in warm water, she tries to stop growth and aging and time.  She, as does everyone, tries to “hold the moment,” and keep it from leaving.