Page 120 - Student: dazed And Confused

Short stories should be plausible. It depends on what one means by plausible. For
some, it means a story must be rooted in reality and true to life. Kew Gardens satisfies that
definition to the letter. However, Behind Me meets an entirely different definition of
plausibility - the one that is not firmly rooted in our reality and lets the reader believe what
they want. On reading either story, they are both believable in their own way.
Upon reading Kew Gardens, one can almost visualise Woolf, or the character she is
writing through, sitting on a park bench with a note book and pencil. The observations
about the behaviours and mannerisms of her characters are so sharp that they could be real
people - and to n extent they are. The conversations the characters are having
'"Because I've been thinking of the past. I've been

thinking of Lily, the woman I might have married....
Well, why are you silent? Do you mind my thinking
of the past?"'
and are just snatches of longer exchanges, extending both before and after what we read.
One man is reminiscing about the past and the girl he could have married; whilst a second
discusses spirits and their presence in Heaven; and a third couple speak together on the luck
not to pitch their parasol on a Friday. it is true to say that these candid sentences are
sometimes as uncomfortable to read as they must have been to write, see or hear, but that
is what happens in our reality - people are brutally honest. Perhaps, though, the language

used by the characters offers the notion that it is more contrived than it seems. But it is
entirely plausible that anyone can pick up the most candid words and strangest behaviours
about a person if one drops into that life at just the right moment, as Woolf has done. We
have seen the technique of dropping randomly in and out of people's lives increasingly in
the modern media. Indeed, had the technology been around 90 years ago, a hidden camera
would have been planted and left to record in the hope of capturing such naked footage. A
life we see revisited a few times is that of the snail. Woolf's eye for detail is amazing as not
many writers would have considered the trials of a lowly snail 'the snail... now appeared to
be moving very slightly in its shell', to be legitimate, literary material. It is wholly possible
that a snail would be in the park, would remain in frame for a good length of time and

would be noticed by the woman who is watching so many lives being lived around her.
Okay, we have established that the story is plausible from the readers' point of view.
We know that short stories should have some plausibility but Kew Gardens is a piece of
fiction and should be treated as such. However closely it seems to echo real life of the era,
the reader will only believe as much or little as they want to... as with the next story.
The second line of Behind Me is a line of dialogue repeated 6 V times, launching us
directly into the rhythm if not the world of the story. Repeating the phrase 'Teedle-um-
tum-tum' may seem quirky at first but, upon realising the young woman is a ghost, it
becomes plausible. There is a common belief in some circles that the deceased indefinitely

repeat the dying moments. There are a also a number of mentions of the boss, Mark Letter.
Ordinarily, the reader would pick up that he is an important character but, as we learn more
of his eccentric personality, it becomes believable that the girl would keep referring to him.