MovieChat Forums > The Hours (2003) Discussion > anyone feel sorry for Laura?

anyone feel sorry for Laura?

posted 10 years ago by Sunshine_pink
5 replies | jump to latest

i felt for her.

she lived in a time where women got married and had kids....women weren't encouraged to have careers and doesn't sound like her parents were very supportive, they wanted her off their plate. as soon as her brothers friend came from war and wanted to marry her she really had no choice.

and the same with the children. this is the case for women living in asia, Middle East and Africa and even in the western world still governed by eastern influences.

what happened to the women who did not want to be married and did not want children?

they were forced to conform and become what society and their communities expected from them. they are trapped in a life they are supposed to have not the life they want to have.

Laura was brave. she knew it was death and she choose life. she did what millions of women did not and cannot do....she had the strength to go against society and and live her own life.

and yet she is still punished and she is still haunted. it's like being forced into a life U did not want and being punished and then leaving the life u did not want and still being punished.

my mother had to get married society expected it (1980s Trinidad was not a woman friendly society) and her parents said they wouldn't support her to study if she did not get married and she had no choice. she hated it and then if she didn't have children the elders and others will talk saying she was barren so she had two of us.
and she stayed, like Laura she was desperately unhappy and that made us unhappy. she became detached from us, my sister started cutting when she was 12 and no one noticed and then my mother tried to kill herself. my childhood is waiting on edge to hear that she has finally done it and it would all be over

Laura leaving was the best thing she could do I wish my mother had done it but she chose to let us live her misery her failed life and the price she paid to conform. it was a bitter price to pay for kids....it is always better for kids to know their parents are well and far away than they are suicidal and u wait for the day when they will die

I don't think Laura had a good life and it's sad...whatever she would have done would never had pleased anyone. all she wanted was to be left alone and enjoy her books but she couldn't have that and everyone suffered but had she stayed I am sure it would have been worse

[–] leah-sees 10 years ago

ss the daughter of a woman who never wanted -hell, never even LIKED - kids, I would have applauded Laura's brave choice, if only she had made it before she had two children. As it was , their mental health was doomed whether she stayed or left.

[–] leobourne 10 years ago

Yes, me! I saw myself in her and my mother had the same story as yours. Laura did the right thing about life to leave and choose life over death as she says. It's a trap. And you grow mentally unhealthy living a life you don't want to live. You are forced into a relationship with a man out of circumstances and you have to live with it because you cannot break free. And because at that point of time, there was not much they could do because their education was cut off at an early stage like the countries you mentioned. I root for Laura. Let everyone fight for their independence and identity like she did, instead of marrying someone; living like a slave to older men and putting up with their horse *beep* every day with their bullying just because they are the earning members. If there was a time machine, I would make my mother start life all over again.

[–] catjoescreed 9 years ago

A better question might be, did anyone *not* feel sorry for Laura. I'm sure most feeling human beings were moved by her unhappiness. I felt sorry for her husband as well.

[–] shushkka 9 years ago

I feel for her too. She's going to take pills but eventually changes her mind because she considers suicide an egoistic act. But which is more egoistic - to commit suicide and make your relatives, parents miserable or to force the person who is extremely unhappy to continue living the life the person hates to live when there is no other way out but killing oneself?

[–] SaliceMcD 9 years ago

Sunshine_pink and leobourne, I'm sorry for what you had to go through. I had the same experience, although the cause of the mental illness was clinical and not related to being a parent. We hadn't heard of cutting back then, so I used a brush with steel bristles to inflict a great deal of pain on myself and release endorphins.

I would assume that in 1961, it would have been quite difficult for Laura to obtain birth control without her husband's knowledge; I wouldn't be surprised if a doctor were to have insisted on his consent, or called and told him about it after the fact. Or, she may have heeded all she heard and read about babies bringing joy to "everyone's" life.

Despite what you say, catjoescreed - and I agree with you - I'm surprised there are no posts here (yet?) by people expressing hatred for her and her choice, and stressing the usual "children always come first." But, as has been said, she no doubt spared them from anguish worse than that caused by her leaving (to Richie, that is; much less so his infant sister, when she later learned of it.)