“O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” This is the last sentence of Virginia Woolf’s essay, The Death of the Moth, in which Woolf describes to her readers the cycle of life and the struggles that she faced because of the psychological issues that she possessed. There are various correlations between the moth in Woolf’s essay and her own personal life. What exactly is interpreted by the actions of the moth and the events that occur is a matter of opinion. One may ponder the question, “why had Woolf chosen to write about a moth, instead of a more intriguing subject that relates to her life?” What, if any, significance does the moth have towards Woolf? While these questions may leave a reader unsatisfied or perplexed, Woolf had a more in depth reason for why she chose to write about what she did, not just about a moth and its course through life, but about the difficulties that one must learn to overcome in life and learn the proper manner to greet death.
Woolf begins her writing by introducing moths to her audience. She explains herself as to why she chose to write about moths as opposed to any other creature because moths are neither delightful like butterflies nor are they somber like their own specimens. This thought of Woolf’s may suggest that she felt like a moth at this stage in her life. She continues her writing by focusing on one particular moth, found inside of her house, which was full of youth and energy. Why would Woolf notice the degree of energy that the moth had pertained? Could it be that she felt the complete opposition, as though she was in need of power. Woolf describes the moth to be fluttering around her apartment, specifically around her window pane, vigorously flying from one side to the oth...
... middle of paper ...
...shortly gave up on life, like the moth, and finally committed suicide. This further stands to show the significance of the moth in Woolf’s essay, as it had pertained to her personal life.
Woolf suggests a lot about human nature in her essay. For example, the way Woolf has described the moth one may come to think of it as unintelligent and that it does not contemplate that it will not be able to escape unless the window is opened by an outside force, however we cease to comprehend the initial purpose of why the moth wishes to escape; to get a taste of reality and see what it is truthfully like. This happens to be the same situation that Woolf is faced with as she fought against her psychological predicament. Nevertheless, death reigned over her as well, but she learned to accept and embrace death with her own mind, conquering the complexities that came along the way.
Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard are extremely gifted writers. Virginia Woolf in 1942 wrote an essay called The Death of the Moth. Annie Dillard later on in 1976 wrote an essay that was similar in the name called The Death of a Moth and even had similar context. The two authors wrote powerful texts expressing their perspectives on the topic of life and death. They both had similar techniques but used them to develop completely different views. Each of the two authors incorporate in their text a unique way of adding their personal experience in their essay as they describe a specific occasion, time, and memory of their lives. Woolf’s personal experience begins with “it was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Woolf, 1). Annie Dillard personal experience begins with “two summers ago, I was camping alone in the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” (Dillard, 1). Including personal experience allowed Virginia Woolf to give her own enjoyable, fulfilling and understandable perception of life and death. Likewise, Annie Dillard used the personal narrative to focus on life but specifically on the life of death. To explore the power of life and death Virginia Woolf uses literary tools such as metaphors and imagery, along with a specific style and structure of writing in a conversational way to create an emotional tone and connect with her reader the value of life, but ultimately accepting death through the relationship of a moth and a human. While Annie Dillard on the other hand uses the same exact literary tools along with a specific style and similar structure to create a completely different perspective on just death, expressing that death is how it comes. ...
The effect of Dillard calling the moth a “she” instead of “it” shows that it’s a person who she deeply regrets killing off. Since Dillard killed off the moth she finished her earthy work on a writing scale.
...use in us.”, to choppier and abrupt sentences such as “It was useless to try to do anything.” and “The struggle was over.” The transition to shorter, breathless, syntax when the moth is about to die mimics death itself: breathless and abrupt. The transitional structure of Woolfs piece allows her reader to experience the journey of finding the meaning of life with her, instead of merely explaining a realization she had one day while watching a moth die.
The first words of the book convey a parrot that spoke “a language which nobody understood”, and Edna’s husband “had the privilege of quitting [the parrot] when [it] ceased to be entertaining” (11). In the same light, Edna speaks of and wishes for a life that nobody apprehends. Her husband also possesses the moral, objectifying liberty to quiet Edna when she did not provide leisure, as one can turn off a song once it grows into a tedious nuisance. A further exemplification comes about when Old Monsieur Farival, a man, “insisted upon having [a] bird. . . consigned to regions of darkness” due to its shrieking outside (42). As a repercussion, the parrot “offered no more interruption to the entertainment” (42). The recurrence of the parrot evolves Edna’s state of stagnance as a consequence of being put to a halt by others despite her endeavor of breaking free. Ultimately, as Edna edges out towards the water to her death, a bird is depicted with “a broken wing” and is “beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (159). This recurrence parallels the beaten bird to a suffering Edna. She has “despondency [that] came upon her there in the wakeful night” that never alleviates (159). Dejection is put to action when Edna wanders out into the water, “the shore. . . far behind her” (159). Motif of birds articulates her suicide by its association with
In the story “The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf illustrates the universal struggle between life and death. She portrays in passing the valiance of the struggle, of the fight of life against death, but she determines as well the futility of this struggle. Virginia Woolf’s purpose in writing was to depict the patheticness of life in the face of death. Woolf’s conclusion, “death is stronger than I am,” provides the focus of her argument. Throughout the piece, she has built up her case, lead to reader emotional states its concept of the power of death. The piece would begi...
Early in the essay, she describes herself living alone with her two cats, and she, somehow, makes joke with them although it was not so sure how often she did that in a day. There we can see that she is solitary, yet has some sense of humor lies in herself. Revealing her living environment, that would signal the reader about the upcoming adventure of her with the moths. Some may question why Dillard chose Moths instead of other interesting bugs like a caterpillar or flies to relate to human life. Plus, she does not only explain how the moths dies, but also provides a vivid detail of them dying so that the reader to
In Dillard’s essay, she writes of her life alone and then skips over to a moth that she saw fly into a flame on her own free will. The way that Dillard describes the moth is almost like the way someone would describe a dream or a fantasy. She depicts the moth as “golden” and her wings like the wings of angels. These depictions draw a vivid image of the moth and how she looks while she is being burned alive. As compared to Dillard’s descriptions, Woolf paints a strong picture for the reader but does it in a different fashion. The way that Woolf describes the moth she encounters is much more precise. She uses a form of concrete imagery that excites the logical part of the brain. Sh...
As she continues to observe the moth, she begins to see the creature as a metaphor for life itself. The speaker describes him as he flies from one corner of the room to another as if “a fiber, very thing but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body” (1-2). From the speaker’s perspective, he was “nothing but life” (2). Yet, his existence is composed of simple activities, which means that he represents life in its most primal form to the speaker. Yet even in this primal form, she still perceives him as “form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate
The moths help illustrate a sense of spirituality in this short story. Abuelita, the grandmother, uses old remedies which stem from a religious/spiritual nature to cure physical illnesses such as scarlet fever and other infirmities. Her granddaughter is very disrespectful and doubtful of the medicines which her grandmother used, but they always work. The granddaughter tells us that "Abuelita made a balm out of dried moth wings . . . [to] shape my hands back to size" (Viramontes 1239). In this way the granddaughter begins to accept the spiritual belief and hope.
In the beginning of “The Death of the Moth” Woolf describes ”a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant” (193), the usual autumn day, with regular work on the field, rooks on the tree tops that looked like “a vast net with thousands of black knots” (194). The picture is calm, but rooks, symbol of death, bring dark color to it. Gradually, with the development of the events, when death starts winning over moth’s struggle to live, the image changes, “work in the fields had stopped” (195). Like in the slow-motion picture, everything becomes stiff. Woolf uses words “still”, “indifferent”, “impersonal” to increase a sense of despair. Author uses such an imagery to empower the hopelessness of the moment and to make the reader feel the futility of the life and death struggle.
She describes the September morning as “mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than the summer months.” She then goes on to describe the field outside her window, using word choice that is quite the opposite of words that would be used to describe a depressing story. She depicts the exact opposite of death, and creates a feeling of joy, happiness, and life to the world outside her room. After this, she goes into great detail about the “festivities” of the rooks among the treetops, and how they “soared round the treetops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air”. There is so much going on around her that “it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book.” Descriptions like these are no way to describe a seemingly depressing story about a moth, but by using these, joyful descriptions, Woolf connects everything happening outside to a single strand of energy. These images set a lively tone for the world around her, and now allow her to further introduce the moth into the story.
Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s life, death was a frequent visitor to those he loved around him. When Poe was only 3 years old, his loving mother died of Tuberculosis. Because Poe’s father left when he was an infant, he was now an orphan and went to live with the Allan’s. His stepmother was very affectionate towards Edgar and was a very prominent figure in his life. However, years later she also died from Tuberculosis, leaving Poe lonely and forlorn. Also, later on, when Poe was 26, he married his cousin 13-year-old Virginia, whom he adored. But, his happiness did not last long, and Virginia also died of Tuberculosis, otherwise known as the Red Death, a few years later. After Virginia’s death, Poe turned to alcohol and became isolated and reckless. Due to Edgar Allan Poe’s loss of those he cared for throughout his life, Poe’s obsession with death is evident in his works of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in which in all three death is used to produce guilt.
The extensive descriptions of Mrs. Dalloway’s inner thoughts and observations reveals Woolf’s “stream of consciousness” writing style, which emphasizes the complexity of Clarissa’s existential crisis. She also alludes to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, further revealing her preoccupation with death as she quotes lines from a funeral song. She reads these lines while shopping in the commotion and joy of the streets of London, which juxtaposes with her internal conflicts regarding death. Shakespeare, a motif in the book, represents hope and solace for Mrs. Dalloway, as his lines form Cymbeline talk about the comforts found in death. From the beginning of the book, Mrs. Dalloway has shown a fear for death and experiences multiple existential crises, so her connection with Shakespeare is her way of dealing with the horrors of death. The multiple layers to this passage, including the irony, juxtaposition, and allusion, reveal Woolf’s complex writing style, which demonstrates that death is constantly present in people’s minds, affecting their everyday
In Cunnigham’s The Hours, Virginia Woolf, through Cunnigham’s interpretation, is a character that is fascinated by mortality. In each event she experiences in the novel, she evaluates how she feels about living, and constantly considers suicide as a way to escape her oppressive life. One of these moments occurs when she is attending a “funeral” for a dead bird with her sister’s children. Although the reader knows that Virginia will eventually commit suicide, the “funeral” scene is an important character revelation because it reveals that at this point in the novel, Virginia was not ready to take her own life; and unfortunately, the film misses this important aspect of her character by condensing this scene.
Woolf, therefore, takes advantage of the lyrical short stories’ structure to create a liminal space that both breaks through barriers to form a unified, impressionistic world and to emphasize the imposing negative aspects of such a transitory structure. As a result, Woolf prompts the reader to question whether the liminal space created within the short story is positive in its ability to unite nature and human or negative in its apparent unsustainability. Regardless, the form and structure of the short story are pivotal in Kew Gardens. Without the liminal space of the short story, it is questionable if Woolf could have succeeded in creating the unstable, yet peaceful, world in Kew Gardens.