Death Of The Moth Rhetorical Analysis

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.

Within the narration, Woolf uses fragmentation to intensify certain points in the piece. In the beginning, she illustrates the inconsequential but the fascination of the moth influences in the world through the sentences such as “one could not help but watch him,” “what he could do he did,” and “he was little or nothing but life.” She depicts her indifference through the phrases as “I laid the pencil down,” “I looked out of doors,” “the horses stood still,” and “the struggle was over.” These concluding examples links the effect of the world’s indifference and simple acceptance of an individual’s personal battles.

It is almost ironic that the character struggling against death is a moth because moth are usually associated with death as metaphorical symbols.

The first word Woolf uses is “moths” not as a singular form, but as a plural collective form. The two facts both summarize that the general individual is never safe from death. The eventual resignation and acceptance of death at the end acts as a justification which says that after many successes and failures, an individual can’t always keep fighting. A common theme is the indifference of the outside world. In the first paragraph, Woolf describes the scene outside of the room which involves ploughing fields, rooks, and horses going about their daily lives while the moth fights its fate. Regardless of what happens to the individual, life goes on and the world does not stop

turning.
The appeal to pathos is strong and maintained throughout the piece that the reader can visualize the moth’s activities for themselves. This helps to illustrate the indifference of the outside world to the individual, as seen through the scene depicted from out the window in the first paragraph, and the speaker’s simple and mild curiosity towards the moth.. She utilizes the word “looked” in the fifth paragraph after doing so, making her curiosity, sound passive and mild—as if she no longer cares much whether the moth lives or passes on. The speaker's actions, though, foreshadow the acceptance conveyed through the moth’s death and the final line “o yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.”
She concludes the essay by writing “ …nothing, I knew had any chance against death,” and “o yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” The point she is trying to get across is that no matter what you are, death takes everything. She uses pathos and vivid metaphors to invoke empathy and acceptance in the reader.