Annie Dillard is a writer born in 1945 who has written 15 books and multiples poems and essays. From 1976 to 1979, she lived in Puget Sound before returning to the East Coast. Dillard also taught for 21 years in the English Department of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Her most notable work is “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” which won a Pulitzer Prize. “Transfiguration,” the other title for “Death of a Moth,” appeared in her book “Holy the Firm” but was originally published in 1976 in Harper’s Magazine with a different ending. “Death of a Moth” was the first thing Dillard had written since her success with the book “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” Dillard is known for taking risks in her writing and favoring the unconventional. Presently, …show more content…
she published a collection of narrative essays called “The Abundance” in 2016. Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet who ran away at sixteen and wrote his major work “Illuminations” before the age of twenty-one when he stopped writing all together. For the rest of his life, he traveled aimlessly before dying of cancer at the age of thirty-seven. Rimbaud had a large influence on modern literature. “Death of a Moth” is a short narrative essay written with poetic aspects but is also unconventional and reflective. There are many purposes that can be inferred upon reading “Death of a Moth.” Since the article is written with personal thoughts from Dillard, there is clearly a purpose to express her thoughts and concepts she has been struggling with answering herself. When Dillard is depicting a scene in her classroom, she muses, “Is this what we live for? I thought; is this the only final beauty: the color of any skin in any light and living, human eyes?” (9). Dillard presents the reader with her own questions for the reader to also think about and question for themselves. The other purpose Dillard has for “Death of a Moth” is to persuade about her view that there is life after death and the impact a person can create that lasts longer than the individual’s lifespan, just like the continued flame of the dead moth. It can be inferred that Dillard’s intended target audience are those who want to be writers. This is clearly shown when she addresses both the students and the readers, “How many of you, I asked the people in my class, which of you want to give your live and be writers?” Although in the event she is addressing her students, she is also addressing the reader and questioning the sacrifice writing can create by using the pronoun “you” in the question. Throughout “Death of a Moth,” Dillard disregards many grammar rules to create emphasis and feeling.
In the opening line of the essay, Dillard writes, “I live on northern Puget Sound, in Washington State, alone” (1). The author rejects a normal sentence structure in order to isolate the world “alone.” This is used to bring to attention the reoccurring theme of being alone that contributes to Dillard’s argument of the sacrifice of being a writer. Another interesting syntax choice the author uses is through run-on sentences. When Dillard first notices the moths in the bathroom, she describes, “And the moths, the empty moths, stagger against each other, headless, in a confusion of arcing strips of chitin like peeling varnish, like a jumble of buttresses for cathedral vaults, like nothing resembling moths, so that I would hesitate to call them moths, except that I had some experience with the figure Moth reduced to a nub” (4). By utilizing commas, the author shows her train of thought that lead her mind to recall the pivotal moth in the essay. It helps the reader understand and transition to a time-jump in the writing. Dillard later connects run-on sentences with a semicolon, “So I read, lost, every day sitting by my tent, while warblers swung in the leaves overhead and bristle worms trailed their inches over the twiggy dirt at my feet; and I read every night by candlelight, while barred owls called in the forest and pale moths massed around my head in the clearing, where my light made a ring”
(5).
Does someone need to die in order to gain and obtain equality amongst the others? In the novel In Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, the main character and the subordinate character affect the plot of the novel because they develop a strong relationship. Their relationship becomes so strong that they devise a rebellion. Their rebellion had many outcomes whether being possible or negative. They manage to get equality and respect amongst the people of their land, but they sacrifice their lives and others to obtain it.
Anne Bradstreet’s inability to perfect her work before it was released frustrated her to the point where she internalizes the book’s imperfections as a reflection of herself. Bradstreet uses an extended metaphor of a mother and a child to compare the relationship between herself as the author and her book. Rather than investing her spirit in God, she repeatedly focuses on trying to improve the quality of her writing with no success, “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw” (Bradstreet 13). Like a mother protecting her child, Bradstreet’s attempts to prevent critics from negatively analyzing her work of art (20). Her continuous obsession about people’s opinions consumed in the Earthly world and essentially distracted her from developing a spiritual relationship with God. Bradstreet was enveloped by her dissatisfaction with her to the point of ridiculing herself, “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble mind” (1). It was obvious that her mind and spiritual
The novel In The Times of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, consists of a frame narrative told by the only Mirabal sister to survive the reign of Trujillo, Dede Mirabal. This story takes place in the Dominican Republic all the way back in 1938, leading up to the “present” time in 1994. At this time in the Dominican Republic, the country is being ruled by a man named Trujillo, and he is making their homeland an unsafe and horrible place. The Mirabal sisters’ participation in the political movement against Trujillo led to their murder on November 25, 1960. Their action was symbolized as a threat to Trujillo dictatorship, which eventually led to their death.The conclusion that can be taken to assume that the Mirabal sisters were murdered is Minerva
Geraldine Brooks the author of People of the Book conveys the story of Sarajevo Haggadah. In the chapter “An Insect’s Wings,” Lola, a young Jewish girl, experiences running away from Nazis and coming back to Sarajevo. In this chapter, it also shares some details of how the famed Sarajevo Haggadah was saved from WWII. This chapter shares the journey of Lola and all the unpleasant events she went through.
ImageText BoxImageOne of the biggest threats to the environment of Ontario is the Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar dispar). The species itself is native to Europe and Asia. How this affects us is by weakening trees across Ontario and North America. The first time the gypsy moth was found in Ontario was 1969. The gypsy moth can be found in southern Canada (Ontario), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and British Columbia. It is known to weaken trees and the caterpillar form live in trees and during most outbreaks its caterpillar feces would fall from the trees to the ground or even on top of humans. The average Gypsy Caterpillar can grow 5-6 centimeters long. With five pairs of blue spots and six pairs of bright red dots on their back. The female moth are white and can fly on the other hand, the male moth are brown and can also fly. The female have a 5cm wing span but male have a 2.5cm wing span. The gypsy moth usually lives in open forests and other forests and take up at least 20% of the space. The Gypsy moth are about 4cm long, tan coloured and can be located on tree trunks, furniture, and buildings. (OFAH Invading Species Awareness Program, 2012)
Most writers love to pick the topic of life and death as they are the mystifying kind of things that always make human left wondering. In Annie Dillard’s essay, “The Death of a Moth”, she heavily puts her focus towards the moth’s behavior when dying. Readers generally would think that she is a different type of author to write four pages of essay talking about moths. Also, she mentions lots of details about the variety of bugs in her bathroom which somehow is disturbing to some people when reading this essay for the first time. Moths that die seem very insignificant and quite straightforward. However, if we take the initiative to delve into her piece, we could see the hidden meaning behind the death of the moths. Her interaction with moths
The Mirabal Sisters, otherwise known as Las Mariposas, made their mark in history due to their efforts in the revolution against the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Julia Alvarez, a native Dominican herself, wrote In the Time of the Butterflies due to an account told by Dede Mirabal about the lives and tragic fate of her sisters Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa. Dede’s three sisters were murdered due to their involvement in the revolution; Dede did not join the revolution, and thus survived to help recount their story. Since the novel’s publication in 1994, In the Time of the Butterflies has impacted various aspects of life, and contemporary culture frequently alludes to facets of the novel. One critic commented that "In the Time of the Butterflies suggests that the Mirabal sisters not only fought against the Trujillo regime, but also against the Dominican Republic’s patriarchal culture and gender roles. They were very
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. ...
By explaining in great detail about the flame and how the moth burned for two hours which gives the impression that day time shall never come. Dillard gets across to us the sudden flare of the moth as it first hits the flame, as if a “flame-faced virgin gone to god” as if it was a beautiful sight to see the moth burst up in flames.
Anne Bradstreet’s poetry resembles a quiet pond. Her quiet puritan thinking acts as the calm surface that bears a resemblance to her natural values and religious beliefs. Underneath the pond there is an abundance of activity comparable to her becoming the first notable poet in American Literature. Anne Bradstreet did not obtain the first notable poet’s title very easily; she endured sickness, lack of food, and primitive living conditions during her time in the New World. Despite these misfortunes she used her emotions and strong educational background to write extraordinarily well for a woman in that time.
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.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 poem, “Annabel Lee”, explores the common themes of romance and death found in many of Poe’s works. The poem tells the story of a beautiful young maiden named Annabel Lee who resides by the sea. The maiden and the narrator of the poem are deeply in love, however the maiden falls ill and dies, leaving the narrator without his beloved Annabel Lee. Contrary to what many might expect from a poem by Poe and yet still depressing, the poem ends with the narrator accepting Annabel’s death and remains confident that they will forever be together despite her parting.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York:
"Alice Walker (1944-)." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 319. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2012. 145-203. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. . 2 December 2013