Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is my favorite reading so far this semester. I am beginning to familiarize myself with Woolf’s style of writing. Of course, I have not even scratched the surface but it has gotten better. I am starting to understand her random sentences not as words strung together but as a sort of stream of consciousness. I have also learned that I cannot just flip the pages. Virginia Woolf is by no means an easy “beach read.” I have to read each paragraph and circle, highlight, and comment on nearly every sentence in order to understand what it is she is trying to say. Still, I come to class confused.

When reading it before class I immediately noticed the importance placed on color. Of course red, blue, and yellow flowers were explained in the first couple of sentences. Throughout the rest of the work these three primary colors popped up frequently. This is the perfect example of a pattern that I am beginning to notice and understand of Woolf’s. These red and blue flowers are the same color as the flowers on the dress of Woolf’s mother in her first memory, which is documented in “Sketch of the Past.” That first memory is the one that all others are based on which clearly influenced her stories. The constant description of these colors always makes me pause and re read that sentence because I automatically associate them being of importance. Not just minor detail.

Other colors that I was intrigued by were silver, grey, and gold. I still do not understand the significance of the “square silver buckle at the toe.” In class we talked about silver being symbolic of mirrors and reflections. Is the square silver buckle supposed to be a reflection of the past and what could have been? Possibly the shoe symbolizes the mans curiosity of what would have happened if the dragonfly had landed on that flower and Lily had said yes. Not that it would be any better but how it would have been different.

I never thought about the story being told from the point of view of a snail before class. After our discussion I can see how that may have been the case but I am still not completely convinced. The only thing that could persuade me to agree is the lines, “Sugar, flour, kippers, greens, sugar, sugar, sugar.” It seems to be things that a snail would be interested in and that maybe the only words he heard out of a sentence due to selective hearing.

The last paragraph of the story explains each couple moving about in “the same irregular and aimless movement passed the flower-bed…” and describes their colors of green and blue vapor that were once there dissolve into the green-blue atmosphere. This statement of bodies that “had substance and a dash of colour, but later both substance and colour dissolved” immediately stood out as a symbolism of what happens when you commit to someone else. It gives reason to remain independent rather than married because your uniqueness and identity will fade and vanish just as the vapor.