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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
“Kew Gardens” is filled with symbols. The flowers and sunlight consistently invoke ideas about life, perception, and beauty. A dragonfly represents Simon’s love for Lily, as it hints at the fickle and irrational nature of fate. Trissie’s parasol, as it sinks into the earth under the pressure of her partner’s hand, suggests issues of class and wealth and gender that haunt the relationship. And even the garden itself, sequestered inside a burgeoning and noisy city, serves as an Edenic symbol, peaceful and lovely, yet weighted with the conflicts in the lives of the characters who wander through it.
The snail, which might be viewed as a protagonist of the story, is perhaps the story’s most powerful and persistent symbol. Depicted as determined to reach its destination, with thoughtful intention and the ability to make decisions, the snail moves purposefully toward its undisclosed destination, unlike the indecisive green insect or the human characters who wander without clear purpose or direction. The determined and “thoughtful” spirit of the snail symbolizes the potential to overcome obstacles, as revealed when it identifies the leaf as too fragile to hold its weight and crosses below it. The snail is also uniquely positioned to witness the conversations and behaviors of the human characters, who perhaps bear greater similarity to the butterflies that flit across the scene than to the plodding snail. By considering the narrative from the snail’s perspective, Woolf explores the garden at ground level, a unique and inconspicuous vantage point with which to observe the world.
