Final answer:
The final paragraph of the novel uses descriptive language to depict a scene with various human figures and butterflies. The change of focus to a man and a woman indicates that they will be the subject of what is to follow. The final paragraph suggests a gradually dissolving image, creating an impressionistic feel.
Step-by-step explanation:
The descriptive language of the first and final paragraphs is intensely detailed.
Various human figures pass by and butterflies flit from flower bed to flower bed - a scene we can easily visualize. But Woolf's use of terms such as "curiously irregular" to describe the movement of the humans and "zig-zag" to depict the flight of the butterflies suggests a sense of vagueness and randomness.
The change of focus, from the general scene to the positioning and attitudes of a man, a woman-he "strolling carelessly," she moving "with greater purpose"-alerts us to anticipate that they will be the subject of what is to follow.
Would you agree that there is almost a filmic quality to this narrative description?
When I read this I imagine a camera panning across a wide screen before closing in on the two characters.
The final paragraph of the extract, which describes how the husband and wife and their children "diminished in size […] as the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling irregular patches" seems to me to suggest a gradually dissolving image, such as we might see when a film deliberately loses focus.
In spite of the plethora of detail and description, then, I feel there is nevertheless a somewhat impressionistic feel to Woolf's scene-setting.