Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

757 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Virginia woolf the death of the moth

Similar to a painter, Woolf illustrates the universal connection surrounding the struggle of inevitable death. From an outsider’s perspective, we might think that Wolff is watching a moths attempt at survival. Although, the meaning is more than just a moth dying rather Wolff’s perspective of the patheticness of life when compared to the great amount of power death has over everything it touches. From the rooks to the horses, deaths power can defeat anything in its way leading to the triumphant death of the moth. Virginia Woolf in The Death of the Moth paints a picture through the moth’s inevitable defeat, sketching the circle of life to illustrate deaths great power over everything it strokes.
To begin, Wolff describes the moth with detailed …show more content…

As the moth struggles to escape, getting closer and closer to its death Woolf begins to realize how death can’t be stopped nor shouldn’t be stopped; death has a plan for each individual making it a priority to let nature takes its intended path. Attempting to save the small moth through the aid of a pencil, Woolf realized that nothing had any chance against death. Woolf then accepted the fact that death must be taken with grace, anything in its way will be splattered with its great power. Tinting the passage with deaths uncertainty, laying out deaths plan for every living being, resembles that of a painter creating and drawing out his/her own perspective upon ideas and beliefs. Specifically, Woolf comes out and states the transparency death and life have as they resemble each other although in different aspects. Outside, where such life and precious beauty were held, met with the mortality of such a small creature nothing had changed other than the fact that a life had been taken from the Earth. The rooks went on with their day, the horses kept on moving not acknowledging any difference. In such an instant, the life of a creature was taken from the earth onto another path. There was nothing left, Woolf felt content with the fact that the moth was “relaxed, and instantly grew stiff” to show the end of a struggle against natures

Show More
Related

  • Robert Updike's The Great Scarf Of Birds

    428 Words  | 1 Pages

    As a way to end his last stanza, the speaker creates an image that surpasses his experiences. When the flock rises, the speaker identifies it as a lady’s gray silk scarf, which the woman has at first chosen, then rejected. As the woman carelessly tosses the scarf toward the chair the casual billow fades from view, like the birds. The last image connects nature with a last object in the poet's

    Read More

  • I Never Saw Another Butterfly Vs Night Essay

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the excerpt of Night, it states, “Dozens of starving men fought each other to the death for a few crumbs.” (Wiesel 105) This describes fear because to imagine that food is more important than one's’ life is scary to think about. People wanting to kill each other just to eat something is hard to think about. In the poem, “I Never Saw ANother Butterfly” it states “Butterflies don’t live in here, In the ghetto”(Friedman 16-17) This is an example of fear because this quote gives a sense of eeriness to the setting and it describes when he realizes that things will never be the same again. It also symbolizes he won’t just never see another butterfly but his home, family, and life will never be the same ever again. With death being inevitable not only would you be scared you would also be

    Read More

  • The Loss of the Creature by Walker Percy

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The Loss of the Creature" starts off with the definition of beautiful, which is a key point throughout his essay. Next, he moves in to his example of a family of tourists, and their experience (through his eyes) at the Grand Canyon. He describes his theory of the sightseer, and the discoverer; "Does a single sightseer, receive the value of P, or only a millionth part of value P" (pg 1) Value P, being the experience, and the beauty in which that person collected. Following the sightseers was a couple who stumbled upon an undisturbed Mexican Village. The couple thoroughly enjoyed their first experience, but could not wait to return with their friend the ethnologist. When they did return with him, they were so caught up in what his reaction would be; there was a total loss of sovereignty. Due to their differences of interest in the village, the couples return trip was a waste. The second part of the essay includes a Falkland Islander who comes across a dead dogfish lying on the beach. Furthermore, he explains how a student with a Shakespeare sonnet, has no chance of being absorbed by a student due to the surrounding's or package of the class room. The two students are receiving the wrong messages, on one hand we have the biology student with his "magic wand" of a scalpel, and on the other hand the English student with his sonnet in its "many-tissued package". Both students are unaware of the real experience they could undergo, and the teacher might as well give the dogfish to the English student and the sonnet to the biology student because they will be able to explore and learn more within the different setting, and without the surroundings and expectations (pg 6).

    Read More

  • Audubon and Dillard

    447 Words  | 1 Pages

    Annie Dillard portrays her thoughts differently in her passage, incorporating a poetic sense that is carried through out the entire passage. Dillard describes the birds she is viewing as “transparent” and that they seem to be “whirling like smoke”. Already one could identify that Dillard’s passage has more of poetic feel over a scientific feel. This poetic feeling carries through the entire passage, displaying Dillard’s total awe of these birds. She also incorporates word choices such as “unravel” and that he birds seem to be “lengthening in curves” like a “loosened skein”. Dillard’s word choice implies that he is incorporating a theme of sewing. As she describes these birds she seems to be in awe and by using a comparison of sewing she is reaching deeper inside herself to create her emotions at the time.

    Read More

  • Compare Five A. M. And Five Flights Up

    1370 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the stanzas of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, the speaker very honestly observes the scenes from outside her apartment. From her point of view, she sees a both a bird and a dog in the process of sleeping. The speaker views these animals as having simple lives unbothered by endless questions or worries. Instead, the two live peaceful, uninterrupted existences, rising every morning knowing that “everything is answered” (ln. 22). However, the speaker lives in contrast to this statement instead anxiously awaiting the next day where uncertainty is a likely possibility. Unlike the dog and the bird, the speaker cannot sit passively by as the world continues in its cycle and she carries a variety of emotions, such as a sense of shame. It is evident here that the speaker has gone through or is currently undergoing some sort of struggle. When she states that “Yesterday brought to today so lightly!” she does so in longing for the world to recognize her for her issues by viewing the earth’s graces as so light of actions, and in doing so, she fails to recognize that she can no longer comprehend the beauty of nature that it offers her. In viewing the light hitting the trees as “gray light streaking each bare branch” (ln. 11), she only sees the monotony of the morning and condescends it to merely “another tree” (ln. 13.) To her, the morning is something

    Read More

  • Compare Virginia Woolf And Annie Dillard

    1937 Words  | 4 Pages

    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. ...

    Read More

  • Virginia Woolf And Annie Dillard: Symbolism Of A Moth

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    Atypical things and creatures have been used in the form of symbolism for different stories and poems, and in the case of Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard, it has been the paltry creature of the moth to represent serious, significant subjects. Virginia Woolf uses a moth as a symbol for life, and as the moth is confined inside the windowpane, he struggles to live and eventually dies. This symbolizes the struggle to circumvent death, as life is treasurable. In the case of Annie Dillard, the moth is attracted to the candle flame, and ends up being burnt and shriveled by the flame. However, while the moth is being scorched, the flame burns brighter, denoting that everyone does have purpose after death, but this story also has religious meaning. Both authors, Annie Dillard and Virginia Woolf, use the same creature to signify different meanings and storylines.

    Read More

  • Essay On Racism By Brent Staples

    1694 Words  | 4 Pages

    The relationship between life and death is explored in Woolf’s piece, “The Death of a Moth.” Woolf’s own epiphany is presented in her piece; she invites her reader, through her stylistic devices, to experience the way in which she realized what the meaning of life and death meant to her. Woolf’s techniques allow her audience to further their own understanding of death and encourages them consider their own existence.

    Read More

  • Death Of The Moth Rhetorical Analysis

    1636 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Real Blanche DuBois

    1715 Words  | 4 Pages

    Blanche could be seen as the central character for “being torn away from (her) chosen image”, as the image she projects to the world gets cruelly ripped away from her through a series of events that lead to her demise. Blanche is described as being “moth like”, meaning that she has to hide herself in the dark for fear of going into the light, and in turn revealing the ‘real’ Blanche; she would become the moth, and metaphorically “die” in the light that she divulges.

    Read More

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

    531 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    Has there ever been something so small and meaningless that it actually has the same struggles as man does? “The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf” is about Woolf getting distracted by a moth that dies on her windowsill. The essay that she writes about the moth death and the struggle that it had before it perished has a lot of similarities to those that man might sometimes go through. The moth is like man because both are fighting against death, they have both stubbornness and determination and the moth and man have bystanders watching. One reason why the moth is like the man is that both the moth and man fight against death.

    Read More

  • Robert Frost’s, “Design”

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    Subsequently, the spider, “holding up a moth” draws out the evil or cruelty, which is nature. Frost accents this in the subsequent verse, “Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth” (Frost, 593). His play on words here is prodigious, “a white piece of satin cloth” (Frost, 593) this stanza demonstrates ...

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis: Kew Gardens

    1205 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Bird Came down the Walk by Emily Dickinson

    1783 Words  | 4 Pages

    “A Bird came down the Walk,” was written in c. 1862 by Emily Dickinson, who was born in 1830 and died in 1886. This easy to understand and timeless poem provides readers with an understanding of the author’s appreciation for nature. Although the poem continues to be read over one hundred years after it was written, there is little sense of the time period within which it was composed. The title and first line, “A Bird came down the Walk,” describes a common familiar observation, but even more so, it demonstrates how its author’s creative ability and artistic use of words are able to transform this everyday event into a picture that results in an awareness of how the beauty in nature can be found in simple observations. In a step like narrative, the poet illustrates the direct relationship between nature and humans. The verse consists of five stanzas that can be broken up into two sections. In the first section, the bird is eating a worm, takes notice of a human in close proximity and essentially becomes frightened. These three stanzas can easily be swapped around because they, for all intents and purposes, describe three events that are able to occur in any order. Dickinson uses these first three stanzas to establish the tone; the tone is established from the poet’s literal description and her interpretive expression of the bird’s actions. The second section describes the narrator feeding the bird some crumbs, the bird’s response and its departure, which Dickinson uses to elaborately illustrate the bird’s immediate escape. The last two stanzas demonstrate the effect of human interaction on nature and more specifically, this little bird, so these stanzas must remain in the specific order they are presented. Whereas most ...

    Read More

More about Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

Open Document