More handpicked essays just for you.
The death of a moth by virginia woolf meaning of death
The death of a moth by virginia woolf meaning of death
Feminist theme in Virginia Woolf's work
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
As we read Virginia Woolf’s somber yet fascinating short story The Death of the Moth, it is quickly realized this is about her personal struggle with depression. The moth itself is the very symbol of her hope to not diminish in this interesting life. Woolf intricately compares the moth’s futile attempts to what seems to be minute problems, but are quite possibly some of the most challenging moments in her life. Woolf mentions such a small detail, “As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible” (Woolf, 2). This sentence may seem insignificant and written for detail, but it strongly suggests through each struggle that perhaps a new truth is revealed. This truth may be about Woolf herself, and the prison her mind has now become. Woolf seems to appreciate these facts that come to life, but quickly realizes the truths only seal her fate. …show more content…
What if instead the moth had been outside of the window, or the window was open? His energy wouldn’t be wasted on these simple activities; instead he would be flourishing in what was ahead of him. I believe Woolf often pondered if her mind wasn’t sick, or if her thought process was different, would she be able to continue living? Would her life be different and fulfilling? Woolf does establish that life is interesting by pointing out the details of the scenery, and the habits of the birds and ploughmen around her. I can see that Woolf would like to continue the experience laid out before her, but cannot get past where her illness has already set up
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 the beginning of “The Death of the Moth” Woolf describes ”a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant” (193), the usual autumn day, with regular work on the field, rooks on the tree tops that looked like “a vast net with thousands of black knots” (194). The picture is calm, but rooks, symbol of death, bring dark color to it. Gradually, with the development of the events, when death starts winning over moth’s struggle to live, the image changes, “work in the fields had stopped” (195). Like in the slow-motion picture, everything becomes stiff. Woolf uses words “still”, “indifferent”, “impersonal” to increase a sense of despair. Author uses such an imagery to empower the hopelessness of the moment and to make the reader feel the futility of the life and death struggle.
The morbid, melancholic mood of the story sets the atmosphere for author’s observant yet sympathetic tone. Woolf also uses many literary devices throughout the story to expand the reader’s interest, such as her use of diction in line ? “Pathetic” and her use of imagery in line ? “hay-colored wings”. Woolf also uses description to portray the moth’s appearance throughout his efforts to live., using flowing adjectives throughout. The story as a whole uses symbolism to depict life and death in a different light, using the moth’s representation of life trying desperately to avoid death, but ends in the eventual fate of decease.
Woolf’s writing in “The Death of the Moth” is focused on the essence of vitality describing the moth as, “a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down feathers, had set it dancing and sig-zagging to show us the true nature of life,” whereas Thoreau’s writing in “The Battle of the Ants” focuses on the exhilaration of the conflict that slowly tappers off as the red ant “with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg… after half an hour or more, he...” “…divest himself of…” the black
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.
In her passage she imagines what it may have been like had William Shakespeare had a sister. She notices how difficult it would be even given the same talents as Shakespeare himself, to follow throughout and utilize them in her life. It is clear after reading further into Woolf's passage that obviously she lived in a different time period, only about fifty years apart though. The way she relates and tells a very similar story with an entirely different setting shows without the reader even knowing that she wa... ... middle of paper ... ...
Ernest Hemingway's short story titled "A Clean Well-Lighted place" deals with the loneliness, isolation, and depression felt by many during the modernist period. The story takes place in a well lit café, occupied by two waiters (one old, and one young) and an old deaf man. This story is the perfect example of the modernist form because it questions the meaning of life. Joseph Gabriel, in is essay titled "The Logic of Confusion in: Hemingway's "A Clean well Lighted Place", believes that "the dominant visual image of the story is the radical contrast between the minute spot of light represented by the café and the infinite surrounding darkness outside."(Joseph Gabriel, The Logic of Confusion in: Hemingway's "A Clean well Lighted Place", Pg, 541) One can't help but compare the story to the image of moths att...
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
Woolf, therefore, takes advantage of the lyrical short stories’ structure to create a liminal space that both breaks through barriers to form a unified, impressionistic world and to emphasize the imposing negative aspects of such a transitory structure. As a result, Woolf prompts the reader to question whether the liminal space created within the short story is positive in its ability to unite nature and human or negative in its apparent unsustainability. Regardless, the form and structure of the short story are pivotal in Kew Gardens. Without the liminal space of the short story, it is questionable if Woolf could have succeeded in creating the unstable, yet peaceful, world in Kew Gardens.
Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style of narration is essential to her method of providing social criticism. Instead of forcing extreme physical situations or conflicts into her text, Woolf instead offers nuanced observations through her characters’ patterns and trains of thought. Virginia Woolf said of Mrs. Dalloway, “I want to criticise the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense” (Zwerdling), a statement that may surprise some readers. However, allowing the reader to witness each individual thought of the characters as they are linked together helps provide insight into how the social system influences their thoughts, memories, and ultimately their identities. The strength of Woolf’s social criticism comes from her ability to infer judgment in this fashion and presents interesting perspectives on class conflict, socialization self-restraint, regret, and coming to terms (or rejecting) with the conditions ...
She says, “The image that comes to mind when I think of this girl is the image of a fishermen lying sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake with a rod held out over water. She was letting her imagination sweep unchecked round every rock and cranny of the world that lies submerged in the depths of our unconscious being” (379). Woolf was implying like fishermen, writers must sit and wait patiently, writers wait until the perfect idea comes along, and fishermen until the perfect fish come along. The use of metaphors in her essay give her audience the opportunity to think creatively of what they are being told as well as employ life-like comparisons to the ideas being expressed by the writer or
...rior and exterior nuances. Although it seems contradictory, Woolf's use of fragmented imagery and thought colliding together almost randomly yet linked beneath the surface by fine threads of coherency represents an attempt synthesize the novel with life.
'To the lighthouse' is held together by the use of motif, the unexpected difficulties that these motifs represent are as Margaret Drabble puts it 'tightly woven'. Woolf's use of stream of consciousness, would unravel at the seams with its constant shifts, without the static image of the lighthouse or the painting, the story would just be a jumbled collection of thought processes.
Throughout her life Virginia Woolf became increasingly interested in the topic of women and fiction, which is highly reflected in her writing. To understand her piece, A Room of One’s Own Room, her reader must understand her. Born in early 1882, Woolf was brought into an extremely literature driven, middle-class family in London. Her father was an editor to a major newspaper company and eventually began his own newspaper business in his later life. While her mother was a typical Victorian house-wife. As a child, Woolf was surrounded by literature. One of her favorite pastimes was listening to her mother read to her. As Woolf grew older, she was educated by her mother, and eventually a tutor. Due to her father’s position, there was always famous writers over the house interacting with the young Virginia and the Woolf’s large house library.