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Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” is not a typical, plot-centered short story, which may confuse or befuddle readers. There is no beginning at which a distinct protagonist is introduced, nor is there a single, driving conflict that unfolds into rising action, a climax, falling action, and a clear resolution. Even if a reader were to try to discover a conventional plot structure and conflict in each of the stories of the characters that sweep by, that reader would likely fail, except perhaps in the events that unfold around the experiences of a slowly advancing snail.
Instead, “Kew Gardens” can best be described as a collection of vignettes offering tiny glimpses into the lives of passing characters, offering little more than brief impressions of the larger, unexpressed plots of their lives. Woolf’s narrative style bounces from a stream-of-consciousness revelation of a character’s thoughts to objective, external descriptions. This style forms an experimental approach crafted to express a new form of verisimilitude, or truth value, to the written word. Just as a painting might capture a set of moments, each open to a viewer’s interpretation, Woolf’s story captures glimpses of lives, each mysteriously open to what a reader might find.
Perhaps the most defining feature of the story is its use of visual, often poetic, descriptions of the setting. Those descriptions not only help readers visualize the spectacular scenery found in the garden but prompt the characters to reveal aspects of their lives. Flowers and colors form recurring symbols in the story, suggesting that there is beauty to be found in each of the passing characters. Just as the colors of the light flicker and change with the breeze, the characters flicker a moment and change: there are parents thinking about past loves and unlived lives; there are elderly eccentrics dwelling on the dead; there are gossips chatting about nothing; and there are young lovers whose relationship is still unclear. All, the setting suggests, are mysterious, marvelous, and beautiful to see.
Nostalgia, rather than conflict, drives much of the story as its setting triggers characters to reflect on the past or inspires them to create memories upon which they might later reflect. Simon is reminded of his lost love, Eleanor considers her lost artistic past, and the elderly eccentric is drawn not only to thoughts of conversing with spirits but to some memory of flowers and a woman who accompanied him on a visit to Uruguay. Each glimpse into their lives only hints at conflict, internal and external, and only Simon seems to have changed, having become reconciled to the present. Other characters drift by, including Trissie and her partner, whose tense conversation, prompted by what seems to be a disagreement about the value of the setting, indicates that the two are struggling to create a memory about a shared experience upon which both might agree.
As “Kew Gardens” reaches its conclusion, Woolf reveals nothing about what has happened to the passing characters. As is true of life, events are unresolved and mysterious. Instead, Woolf returns to a description of the setting, blending characters and setting together, as if the two are one and the same. Under the heat of the day, people find shade and disappear, “dissolving like drops of water . . . staining [the atmosphere] faintly with red and blue,” where only their voices remain. It is the setting that explains the final truth of the story, revealing “depth of contentment, such passion of desire, or . . . freshness of surprise . . .” that has been reflected in each of the vignettes of the passing characters: the contentment of Simon, the passion of the eccentric old man, and the freshness of the relationship between Trissie and her partner.
