Many great authors that study human nature stood out the most during the period of time between the Imperialism and World War II. Among these authors were George Orwell and Virginia Woolf. Their study of the human nature is especially visible in certain short stories that each author respectively did. Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth.” In either of these stories the respective author uses animals to depict their complex ideas about the nature of life, men, and the whole world.
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...
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. ...
Virginia Woolf’s essay “ Death of the Moth” describes three very important elements that were presented throughout the essay. Without these elements, she would have never got her worries and suffering out to her readers about the inescapable death. She shows the ultimate power of death that lingers from creature to creature. Showing there is no escape from death, itself is unbeatable. The essay “ Death of a Moth used the devices, imagery, personification, and simile.
The relationship between life and death is explored in Woolf’s piece, “The Death of a Moth.” Woolf’s own epiphany is presented in her piece; she invites her reader, through her stylistic devices, to experience the way in which she realized what the meaning of life and death meant to her. Woolf’s techniques allow her audience to further their own understanding of death and encourages them consider their own existence.
Insects may be the bane of some people’s existence, but the creatures are truly strong globes of energy, going about their lives, flitting to and fro. Thoreau and Woolf both captured this essential spirit in their writing. In “Battle of the Ants” and “The Death of the Moth,” both writers observe other life forms, but the way in which they perceive the insects struggles vastly differs. According to an online biography, Thoreau’s exposure to transcendentalism as well as his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson both shaped his writing to emphasize “the importance of empirical thinking and of spiritual matters over the physical world,” whereas Virginia Woolf’s parents raised her to be free thinking which resulted
Orwell argues in “Shooting an Elephant ” that countries lose power went they become imperialist and totalitarian countries. In “Shooting an Elephant ” he gives the main character beliefs and the will to do the right thing. Despite the main character's sympathy for the people he severs, the people still ridicule him. When the protagonist gets the chance to please the people he does it because he does not want to look weak. He is an instrument of the will of the people he severs, just like totalitarian governments. This argument opened my eye about totalitarian rule, but I am not completely convinced it has discussed all the values in this equation. Totalitarians are only the puppet of the majority. So, if the Totalitarian can manipulate the majority, he can subject his will.
Throughout the many essays and articles I’ve read in class, “Shooting An Elephant” happened to be the most intriguing. The beginning of the essay may have lead me to believe that the story would simply be the author telling the story of how he shot an elephant in a foreign country. However, as I read more the issue became apparent. It’s basically as if the issue was shadowed by the author’s own story and to fully understand the issue you would have to actually pay attention to the author’s tone and emotions as well as the way in which he describes his actions. To elaborate, the main point to be taken away from this particular essay revolved around the art of proper decision making. To realize this I had to take note of how the author described
Virginia Woolf’s essay “Death of the Moth” describes her encounter with a moth as it fights furiously to escape her windowpane before it is claimed by death. The speaker’s first instinct as they intently watch the moth’s struggle is to help it, but as she goes to do so, they realize that the moth is engaged in the same inescapable struggle faced by all living creatures as they try to prevent death from robbing them of life. By witnessing the moth’s death, the speaker is compelled to ponder the philosophical implications that incur within the circular pattern of life and death. She is conscious of death’s omnipotent inevitability, but concludes that the ever-present possibility of death serves as a primary motivational force necessary for life to have value and meaning. Since death cannot be overpowered, the way an individual struggles to survive and preserve life even in its final moments is more valuable than the mundane, meaningless activities pursued with apathy.
In the essay ?Shooting an Elephant? by George Orwell, the author uses metaphors to represent his feelings on imperialism, the internal conflict between his personal morals, and his duty to his country. Orwell demonstrates his perspectives and feelings about imperialism.and its effects on his duty to the white man?s reputation. He seemingly blends his opinions and subjects into one, making the style of this essay generally very simple but also keeps it strong enough to merit numerous interpretations. Orwell expresses his conflicting views regarding imperialism throughout the essay by using three examples of oppression and by deliberatly using his introspection on imperialism.
No matter how hard we fight, death always wins. Like the moth in the story, people struggle with something all their life long, but at the end they all are facing the death. It’s an inevitable fact: “death is stronger than I am” (196), Woolf states. Basically, she says that we are choosing how to live – fighting or not, with someone’s help or without – the end is the same. It is pessimistic, but it’s the sad truth of life.
It is clearly shown in the Virginia Woolf’s essay that she was struggling between life and death during that time. Woolf makes us feel the death of a specific moth, which leaves the readers respecting the power of death. In Woolf’s essay, the moth was trying to pass through the window screen, but fails to do so because the window was closed. This insignificant creature created a battle with himself, struggling to fly through the windowpane and start a new life. To Woolf’s eyes, the moth did not let the glass separate itself from his goal, to manipulate his life. Virginia Woolf felt “a queer feeling of pity for him” and tries to help the moth. But, Woolf withdraws because helping him would take away the most important part of the moth’s life; the beauty of his struggle toward success.
In George Orwell novel, “Shooting an Elephant” he expresses his fear and indefinite feelings of shooting an elephant so that he can impress the natives of his town as a white man. Orwell’s purpose is to convey the white men of his town that holding a rifle in his hand means that he is self-reliant and can impress the natives. He creates a inside imagery of a convinced feeling and encouragement by the thousands of people that crowded the streets just to see him shot a elephant. By doing so, he builds the confidence from the town people that followed him as a way to show that natives what they expect from him. In George Orwell’s novel “Shooting an Elephant”, he gives the reader a observable understanding through his use of words using his imagery, tone words, and figurative language.
Throughout Orwell’s literary career, he avidly stood against totalitarian and imperialistic forms of government. His two most famous works (1984 and Animal Farm) both exemplify this point, but at the same time weaken it. These two works were written in protest of those governments, but in a fictional back ground. In Orwell’s essay Shooting an Elephant, he uses a personal experience to more clearly emphasize the impact of imperialism at the sociological and psychological level, in conjunction with other literary elements. This symposium of devices help drive the purpose of his paper and ultimately creates a more substantial impact on any reader.
Lao Tzu once said, “Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.” This quote is saying that death is an inevitable definiteness in life. In Virginia Woolf’s essay The Death of the Moth, there is a struggle of life and death, which is delineated as a battle that is not ever won. Woolf utilizes fragmentation within the narration, metaphors to convey the message, and a feeling of pity. As the essay goes on, her metaphors and stylistic choices strengthen the idea that death cannot be beaten.
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” deals with the nature of a human’s identity and ego. The story is set during the British colonization of Burma and discusses the ordeals of an English police officer stationed in the colony, who hates both his job and the people whom he polices. He faces many challenging decisions that put him in a place where he must either follow his own beliefs or fall to the will of the citizens of Burma. Throughout the story the officer is stuck with the decision of whether to do what he thinks is right, in order to preserve his ego or to do what the majority wants, in order to preserve his public identity. This decision is one that transcends Orwell’s essay and is faced throughout life by all people.
Orwell?s extraordinary style is never displayed well than through ?Shooting an Elephant,? where he seemingly blends his style and subject into one. The story deals with a tame elephant that all of a sudden turns bad and kills a black Dravidian coolie Indian. A policeman kills this elephant through his conscience because the Indians socially pressurized him greatly. He justified himself as he had killed elephant as a revenge for coolie.