Petals by Ms. Bucher, on "Kew Gardens"

From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end. The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath with a spot of the most intricate colour. The light fell either upon the smooth, grey back of a pebble, or, the shell of a snail with its brown, circular veins, or falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such intensity of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one expected them to burst and disappear. Instead, the drop was left in a second silver grey once more, and the light now settled upon the flesh of a leaf, revealing the branching thread of fibre beneath the surface, and again it moved on and spread its illumination in the vast green spaces beneath the dome of the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves. Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk in Kew Gardens in July.

Petals

I am drawn to Woolf’s use of flowers and petals in “Kew Gardens.” Specifically, the poetic descriptions of petals, which appear in both the opening and ending sentences of this short story (even though the story itself has no plot, character completion, privileged narrative perspective, nor closure).

Woolf begins “Kew Gardens” with an oval-shaped flower-bed where “there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end.” Flowers can represent anything, inspire introspection, awaken the imagination, or bring up a memory. What caught my eye was the language of heart, tongue, and throat.  Heart, tongue, throat -- do we not use all of these when we truly communicate with one another? 

Even further, Woolf makes an interesting move in this first paragraph; she describes the leaves on a flower stock as “heart-shaped and tongue-shaped” twice, in the same paragraph. While we frequently see things described as “heart-shaped,” I was not expecting to come across the “tongue-shaped” image. I was even more surprised when that very image appeared twice in the same paragraph, once at the beginning and once at the end. Now, we tend to place significance on repeated images, so to what is Woolf trying to draw our attention?  The tongue is both sexual and sensual, emoting the sense-impression of passion or tasting. Woolf seems to be drawing us towards a memory of something intensely pleasurable or visceral. The tongue is also vital to human speech, used both to produce and shape the sounds of our own voices. We also are presented with symbolism of communication and verbal expression.

After reading the entire story, I found myself coming back to this description of the flowers, connecting it with the “wordless voices” in the final paragraph of “Kew Gardens.” Do these flowers speak? When we include flowers as part of the voices in the garden, then I wonder about the nature of communication. In what way do they speak? Is it in the same manner in which the people in this story speak to one another? How do the flowers speak to us? What do their voices add to the world? To our experience of the world? To our internal worlds?  Suddenly, I want to go out to my mothers’ flower box on the patio and absorb their chatter. 

In class, we reflected on the narration immediately preceding and following the conversation between the young man and young woman in order to discover what it had to do with the conversation. It is interesting to note that the narrative proceeding that conversation includes the flower imagery we are discussing presently: “They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case.” First, by drawing a connection between the young couple and flowers, we already feel like the division between man and nature is actually more fluid than we believe (possibly there is no divide at all). There is certainly some gulf between their words: “these short insignificant words also expressed something, words with short wings for their heavy body of meaning, inadequate to carry them far and thus alighting awkwardly upon the very common objects that surrounded them, and were to their inexperienced touch so massive.”

Words are inadequate and we need to look to nature to relearn communication. In class, I think that it was Ms. Dettmer who said that the lovers seemed to be more intimate nonverbally, as evident in their hands on the parasol. Following that line of thought, it seems that they could not completely communicate through words, but physically they had mutual understanding. Perhaps it is when we look beyond words that we can truly find connection, harmony, and unity. Perhaps we humans are stuck in some sort of believed division between nature and man, lost in our own internal worlds and only communicating with another by words that cannot convey the true meaning behind them. The inadequacy of words. Think about flowers whispering to each other through the bee’s carrying the pollen, through the breeze bending stalks closer, through the production of new leaves that touch another stem, through the fragrance that wafts from the flower’s core, through the attraction of hummingbirds. Through the exchange of energy and warmth and chlorophyll.

To be human, we dwell in possibilities present in our alternative, individual worlds. The flowers bring these memories or possibilities to their minds. The flowers (even more generally, nature or the external world) unite with our minds, diverting our stream of consciousness yet again. There is some sort of communication between our flow of thought and the petals reflecting light and flashing color into our eyes. The first man recalls a memory tied to the red flower he passes. The old man is distracted by the flowers and speaks to them, seemingly answering a voice coming from the flower. The heavy woman looks at the flowers then suggests they find a seat to drink their tea. Words, however, blind us. Following this line of thought, I think if the only form of communication was words then we would each be so very lonely and disabled.

The short story ends with this: “Voices. Yes, voices. Wordless voices, breaking the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear; like a vast nest of Chinese boxes all of wrought steel turning ceaselessly one within another the city murmured; on the top of which the voices cried aloud and the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into the air.” There was no silence, and the petals flashing their colors are included as part of the array of voices. In fact, this seems to indicate that the voice of the flower speaks just as easily as the man-made noises and the human voices. Although we don’t hear the petals as we hear man speak, there is still noisy information happening. And those wordless voices tell us about the clatter, the cacophony, the buzz, and the explosion of life all around us.

Certainly, these passages open more questions. What is Virginia Woolf trying to convey in flowers? What is the relationship between man and man and man and nature and nature (e.g., flowers) and nature (e.g., snails and butterflies)? What makes true communication? There is a presupposing that flowers, like man, express themselves.  Must express itself to live and perhaps survive. That our critical shortage and arrogance is to assume that only man speaks and hears. Perhaps Virginia Woolf is expecting, by questioning our limited awareness of the truth of this broader universe, more than answers. She wants us to suspend any misplaced sense of superiority that prohibits us from hearing what vital messages the flowers are telling us. The world is bursting with life and chatter, and to be alive to it requires a sensitivity to all the nuances of communication.