Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Wait...Whose Gardens?

             As opposed to focusing on the plot pieces presented in "Kew Gardens" by Virginia Woolf, I find the method in which the content was presented to be most fascinating. The entirety of this story is set up as though it is all one giant tapestry of beautiful sights and sounds. In this story it is difficult for the reader, or the assumed narrator for that matter, to pay attention to one single aspect of the chosen garden setting. As I looked through the lens provided by Woolf, I imagined this story as being told through a sort of prism with dazzling images of a near fairy tale being cast all around me.
            Woolf opens her work with a detailed description of the flowers that exist in the garden. With such vivid, bright, and almost surreal imagery being presented right from the start, it is difficult to look at the rest of the story without a slight lenience towards a dreamlike quality. The events that follow the prefaced description of the garden seem unreal. The characters, while exceedingly present, still came across as detached and unattainable to me. For example, the man introduced at the very beginning of the story is initially presented with clues that would lead one to believe that he has a very rich backstory. The man walks in front of his wife deliberately and blatantly seems to be regretting the fact that his wife is not someone else. Personally, this issue of longing and regret raises immense curiosity within me. The reader would imagine that the rest of the story is going to continue to elaborate on the man and his discontentment with his current status, however; no further information is given to this piece of the story. Instead, Woolf jumps to the description of another set of individuals that have found themselves in the Kew Gardens on that very same day.  
            With the introduction of each new set of characters, a new conflict or item of interest is also presented. While the reader may inquire many things about each of the characters found in the garden, very little substantial information is given. In this story, the setting in which the action unfolds is much more significant that the characters involved in said action. That being said, if the characters are not so important, I find it incredibly interesting that Woolf would choose to make the characters so attractively complex. The fact that through the description of character the reader is exposed to a more comprehensive description of the setting is something that I find to be very unique and fascinating. The Kew Gardens are clearly a strange place with many exciting stories to be told. Through Woolf’s chosen method of storytelling the garden thus becomes all the more intriguing and the focus/point of the story can be related to the intricacy of the Kew Gardens and the peculiarity yet inexplicable monotony of the people that frequent such places. 

-Kelsey Ferrell

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