Franco Moretti argues in The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture that “Even those novels which are clearly not Bildungsroman or Bildungsroman novels are perceived by us with respect to this conceptual horizon; we then speak of 'failed initiation' or 'problematic training'” (Moretti 561). While not a coming-of-age novel in the sense that it follows the trajectory of a young man's maturation, Michael Cunningham's The Hours presents Clarissa Vaughn as his own symbolic hero. He will have to face a community in crisis and come to terms with understanding how his sexuality has influenced his life choices and, consequently, the formation of his identity. The Hours inverts common conceptions of Bildungsroman structure: instead of emphasizing a young man coming to terms with sexuality through maturation, this narrative divulges the most intimate retrospection and “what if?” contemplation of an older Clarissa who questions and, in a sense, problematizes her identity by wondering what her life would have been like if her sexual and romantic relationships had unfolded differently. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Breaking free from the confines of heteronormativity, this postmodern novel explores homosexuality through the involvement of a wide range 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 narrative, is a New York in crisis: the fury of the AIDS epidemic has left loved ones devastated, culminating in a "crisis of the socio-cultural order and the violent reorganization of power". (Moretti 560). The AIDS epidemic therefore serves as an invitation to consider or reconsider the trajectory one's life takes under the influence of sexuality and choices regarding sexual activity. Clarissa is then invited to reflect on her past and present situation through her disparate interactions with these people, particularly Richard, Sally and Julia, who themselves are in various stages of coming to terms with their sexuality and its influence. For Clarissa, Richard represents a past love that she has never been fully free to explore; Sally is the lesbian lover with whom he has built a home for the past eighteen years. Both characters are positioned at opposite ends of a sexual spectrum on which Clarissa oscillates as she matures, but Sally ultimately gains Clarissa's commitment, publicly positioning Clarissa as a lesbian in a world where homosexuals are placed under sociopolitical control. The question Clarissa must grapple with, then, 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. Would Richard have contracted AIDS? Would he have found more romantic fulfillment in that relationship, as opposed to his relationship with Sally, which at some points in the novel seems forced due to its habitual nature? The Julia-Clarissa dynamic essentially allows the novel to achieve the status of a Bildungsroman because it is the novel: "[it abstracts] from 'real' youth a 'symbolic' youth, synthesized… in mobility and interiority" (Moretti 555). Clarissa observes her daughter, the true youth of the novel who is still incredibly mature for her age, from afar: this mother and daughter pair does not possess an intimate bond. Although Julia's age positions her as a prime example of a young person who has to deal with things,.