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
No comments:
Post a Comment