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The flowerbed, and by extension the whole of Kew Gardens, offers a sense of tranquility and focus as characters stroll along, pause in deep thought, and reminisce. The setting inspires the memories and conversations of each of those characters, prompting them to reveal the events and concerns of their lives.
Woolf’s opening provides highly detailed descriptions of the flowers, the light, the earth, and the living things in the flowerbed, indicating the setting’s significance at the very outset of the story. Later, views of the flowerbed will affect the characters directly, prompting thought, conversation, and reflections about life. Simon and Eleanor, for example, are inspired to reminisce, each about past events that took place in that setting. The elderly eccentric is prompted by a flower to reveal a confabulated past, emphasizing the degree of his madness and inability to distinguish the real from the fantastic. The ponderous woman, engaged in apparently light-hearted gossip with her friend, ceases to listen as she gazes at the flowerbed and loses track of their wandering conversation altogether. And Trissie and her partner, as they stand together, his hand atop hers atop her parasol, are prompted to a tense, broken conversation that may reveal issues in their relationship or signify differences in their values.
