Street Haunting: A London Adventure

8.

I think that the essayist does, in fact, stay consistent with the class definition of a Journey. The journey portrayed in this writing is on a much smaller scale, although it most definitely qualifies as a certain type of voyage; one around the London streets. It is extremely descriptive in the portrayal of the surrounding of the streets. For instance when Woolf says, "How beautiful a London street is then, with its islands of light, and its long groves of darkness, and on one side of it perhaps some tree-sprinkled, grass-grown space where night is folding herself to sleep naturally and, as one passes a iron railing, one hear those little cracklings and stirrings of leaf and twig which seem to suppose the silence of fields all round them, an owl hooting..." I mean we must remember that the purpose of her journey here on the surface, is buying a pencil. Yes, this is a goal, yet, the overall goal is only meant to thwart her smaller goal. She does this in order to give herself some time to wander around the London streets. She purposefully concentrates on small, seemingly futile objects and parts of the city, and then really goes on a mental journey through her existence. Her trip to the store to get a pencil really defines her as more of a meandering wanderer.