Kübler-Ross And Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

There is one true constant in life: everything that lives will eventually die. Arguably, it can also be said that the fear of death is constant. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and Virginia Woolf both explore this instinctive fear of death and humans’ strategies to cope with its inevitability.

Virginia Woolf reconciles her own fear of death with the struggles of a moth in her essay “The Death of the Moth” (976-977). In the piece, Woolf claims that all humans, like the titular moth, fear death and will struggle against it. Woolf uses the moth’s final minutes as a metaphor for human life, describing its last efforts to resume flight and inevitable death in direct contrast to the intrinsic “power” present in the natural surroundings (977). Woolf’s use of a narrative, descriptive style of writing makes her topic and subject seem more visceral, arousing the emotions of the reader (976-977).

Kübler-Ross also explores the idea that while death and dying have not changed, the manner in which humans cope with the constant has evolved. Medically, advancements have changed the course of treatment for both the long-term terminally ill and those experiencing medical emergencies (196). The author advocates for a calm approach to death. Similar to the plight of Woolf’s moth, Kübler-Ross describes a struggle to put off the inevitable. In this case, however, the struggle is that of medical professionals trying to prolong the life of a dying person (Kübler-Ross 199). Kübler-Ross argues that this medical struggle to avoid death creates in the patient a feeling of indignity, describing the