KewGardens.读书报告.docVIP

My Report on “Kew Gardens” “Kew Gardens”, was written by Virginia Woolf, who is an English novelist, essayist, short story writer, critic. Virginia Woolf was born into a talented and distinguished literary family in London in 1882. Recognized as one of the major figure of modern literature, Woolf is highly regarded both for her innovative fiction techniques and insightful contributions to literature criticism. During the world war period, Woolf is also one of the members in the Bloomsbury Group. Her famous works are Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Jacob’s Room and so on. This short story, “Kew Gardens”, was first published on May 12, 1919 By Hogarth Press and reprinted in Monday or Tuesday (1921) and A Haunted House and Other Stories (1944). It is written in the same vein of many other works, with the emphasis on the mysterious intricacy and indifference of human life as well as an unconventional narrative art. With the help of the post-impressionist art, she does a wonderful job painting a picture of modern life through the revelation of the streams of consciousness of the passers-by and the through the comparison between insects and humans. “Kew Gardens”, the story begins by setting the garden scene: a mild, breezy, summer day in July with perhaps a hundred stalks of colorful flowers, petals unfurled to meet the sunlight. The light hits not only the flowers in an oval-shaped flower-bed but the brown earth from which they spring across which a small snail is slowly making its way. As human characters saunter thoughtfully or chattily through the garden and through the story, the narrator returns again and again to descriptions of the garden and the snails slow progression. Men and women meander down the garden paths, zigzagging like butterflies, as the narrator hones in on particular conversations. The first group the reader meets is a husband and wife walking just ahead of their children. The wife of Simon and the mother of two children (Caroline and Hubert), Ele