Willow (The Pretext)

According to Hornby (2015) a willow is “a tree with long thin branches and long thin leaves, that often grows near water” (p. 1786). Willows are from the genus Salix and there are more than 400 trees and shrubs that belong to it. Willows are moisture-loving plants that grow in temperate and cold regions. They can have the size of a bush or grow up to almost 30 meters in height. Most of them have lance-shaped leaves, some of them are narrower and some of them are rounder. They are often used to hold back the soil with their roots, as fences or because of their flexible wood (12 Common Species of Willow Trees and Shrubs, 2021).

In the short story there are willows growing next to the university stream. Beneath the branches of the willows the benches are located on which Mrs. Margaret Ransom and Guy Dawnish sit while the speeches are being held in Hamblin Hall (Lewis, 1968, p. 641). The willow has numerous symbolic meanings. It can be a symbol for mourning, death, chastity, home, unhappy love, betrayal of love and renewal (Butzer and Jacob, 2008, p. 417). Even though not all of them are matching the short story’s themes some of them are fitting regarding the interpretation. The reader could think the willow could be a symbol for mourning in the short story but Mrs. Margaret Ransom only reads the letter of her friend under the willows and is at home locked in her room when she feels sad about the outcome of her relationship with Guy Dawnish, but the willows are mentioned again in this part (“[…] the elms were budding again, the willows hanging their green veil above the bench by the river.” (Lewis, 1968, p. 654)) so the symbolic meaning is partly fitting here. The willow as a symbol for home could be partly fitting because Mrs. Margaret Ransom feels home in Wentworth but she sits under the branches of the willows with a person who is not from the university town. The two most fitting symbolic meanings of the willow are unhappy love and the betrayal or treason of love. When Mrs. Margaret Ransom and Guy Dawnish sit under the willow the two symbolic meanings are not portrayed in this exact situation but the fact that they sit under the branches of the willow tree could be a sign for treason and unhappiness in the future, or rather later in the short story because it turns out Guy Dawnish used Mrs. Margaret Ransom as a pretext to dissolve an engagement, though the reader never knows if it is true or not.

Sources:

Butzer, G.; Jacob, J. (2008). MetzlerLexikon literarischer Symbole. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.

Hornby, A. S. (2015). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, R. W. B. (1968). The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

“12 Common Species of Willow Trees and Shrubs”. The Spruce, 2021, https://www.thespruce.com/twelve-species-willow-trees-and-shrubs-3269668. Accessed June 4, 2021.