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Compare and contrast the death of a moth by woolf and dillard
Similarities between death of moth annie dillard and virginia woolf
The death of the moth by virginia woolf thesis statement essay
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“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf and “The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard are two personal essays that are on the same topic, yet very different. Virginia Woolf was a pessimistic woman who was very serious and admired the simplicity of life, while Annie Dillard is an independent woman who is curious about life and finds it humorous. Life and death are perceived differently by these two authors; Woolf believes that death overpowers life and Dillard believes that death isn’t the final step of the life cycle
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.
“The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard wasn’t based on one specific moth; it was generally pointed toward loss and gain in life; gaining benefits even after death. Dillard compares human life to animal life; perhaps she was seeing herself as the moth in the glowing fire. Ironically, when she caught moths flying into a candle, Dillard was reading, The Day on Fire by James Ullman, which inspired her to write again. Each moth flew into the fl...
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...ht burns on, continuing the work and purpose of its life a little longer. It seems that Dillard is trying to express that no matter how lonely a bug or a person is, everything has light and it’s not necessarily ended by death.
Since, life and death are two things that can be approached in many different ways; both authors chose a similar story. But, the plot of each creature’s death were explored differently; Woolf made a point that death is unavoidable because death is much more powerful than living and Dillard says death is beautiful because we create a lasting impression after we die. Woolf and Dillard clearly and specifically described the life of a moth and the death of a moth, which is usually simple and unimportant to a human. Despite the similar theme, tone
, and style, each author skillfully brought different reflections of the unstoppable power of death.
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.
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.
In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.
The short story, “This Way To The Gas, Ladies And Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski and the poem “On My First Son” by Ben Johnson, both deal with death. They are very different types of death and are told in different ways but through some similar approaches, a similar feeling is portrayed to the reader of each.
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...
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 her essay “The Death of the Moth”, Virginia Woolf encourages us to be inspired by the moth: to make the most of our lives until the very end, but not to fight death unnecessarily and to accept it with pride of having lived a meaningful life. Woolf conveys this message through symbolism, imagery and contrast.
When a woman gets pregnant, she and her partner make a serious decision whether they should give birth to the unborn child or abort it. However, sometimes every couple can have a different outlook about giving birth or aborting because every male and female has his or her ways of thinking. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the author, Ernest Hemingway tells a story of an American man and his girlfriend, Jig, who have a disagreement in the train station on the subject of whether to keep the unborn child or to abort. However, the author uses binary opposition of life and death to portray the polemic argument a couple encounters regarding abortion. As a symbol for the binary opposition of life and death, he represents the couple’s expressions, feelings, and the description of nature.
However, as Woolf claims, death indeed is the ultimate destination of all living things. It is how we reach that destination that matters the most. All rational living creatures “diverge ever more widely from [their] original course of life and to make ever more complicated detours before reaching [their] final aim of death” (Freud 32).
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
"When the purpose of life is fulfilled, death seems a part of life, not a peril to it". Both the protagonists deal with death in different ways.
Katherine Mansfield explores profoundly the world of death and its impact on a person in her short story, "The Garden Party."
The Theme of Death in Poetry Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are two Modern American Poets who consistently wrote about the theme of death. While there are some comparisons between the two poets, when it comes to death as a theme, their writing styles were quite different. Robert Frost’s poem, “Home Burial,” and Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain,” and “I died for Beauty,” are three poems concerning death. While the theme is constant there are differences as well as similarities between the poets and their poems. The obvious comparison between the three poems is the theme of death.