Analysis Of Virginia Woolf's Essay 'Death Of The Moth'

In the essay “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf there are meanings behind what Woolf says. Woolf uses Diction, Syntax, and Symbolism to set the tone and theme. The tone is hopeless and depressed and the theme is that death is inevitable. In “The Death of the Moth” Woolf observes the death of a moth giving a distinct description of the death and relating it to herself.

Woolf uses Diction to make the readers understand her depression. “He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and there to a fourth.” What Woolf is trying to say is that the moth is stuck and has no place to go, going along with her own situation. The moth has no place to go but to suffer from this pain and be alone in a small space just like how Woolf

had been. Being stuck in one place mentally is like being stuck in a small room physically.
The second rhetorical strategy Woolf used was the syntax. She uses syntax to make the readers understand that life could be short or long like the moth. “Watching him, it seemed as if a fiber, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light become visible. He was little or nothing of life.” The longer sentences represent the long beginning of life and the middle as neutral and the last sentence as the ending.
The last rhetorical strategy used is symbolism.

Symbolism is used throughout the essay. In the first paragraph, Woolf writes “Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom which the commonest yellow-underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us.” In literature autumn is one of the seasons closest to death besides winter which is the end, “ivy- blossom” which could symbolize the beginning of a new life. Yellow symbolizes the mood happy which could mean the moth has lived a happy new life but sadly the “shadow of the curtain” means death. Woolf uses many more symbols that could reflect her own death. “It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life” this quote could mean that something as little as a bead could mean so much to someone that cherishes jewelry. Something so small could mean nothing like this moth dying to world or everything like how Woolf witnessed the

death.
In the world many people have problems. Many can relate to these problems or have no idea what to say to others. I know people with depression and i myself had suffered from a mild case of depression. Many other people who suffer from depression end up doing something terrible just like Woolf had done. These people and Woolf had felt stuck in one place just like how the moth had been stuck in the pane before its death. Woolf uses Diction, Syntax, and Symbolism to set the tone and theme. The tone is hopeless and depressed and the theme is that death is inevitable.