Essay on Dillard and Woolf Compare and Contrast

In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.

Annie Dillard, the author of "Death of a Moth" and Virginia Woolf, the author of "The Death of the Moth" have different perspectives on the subject of life and death.

To conclude, Annie Dillard’s piece “The Death of the Moth;” is about Dillard being reminded of the death of a moth she observes and how it relates to herself, this piece is a great depiction of the impact of life and death. She talks about her personal experience in a tone that

Many people attempt to avoid death, and many times those people are successful; however, more often than not, when people face the predicament of dying, they are not fortunate enough to escape the misfortune. Whether a person surpasses the curse of death at one point in time, eventually they will come to meet death; death is inevitable. Virginia Woolf, author of the essay, “The Death of the Moth,” captures the message death is inevitable. Throughout the essay, Woolf follows the short life of a day moth. In following the moth, Woolf comes to the realization that regardless of what she attempts to do to proliferate the decay of the moth, the moth will still succumb to death. To encapsulate the theme in the essay, Woolf uses numerous

In the short stories, the “Death of the Moth,” Annie Dillard and Virginia Woolf discover a moth flying and observes it. The short versions has two versions and both author tries to explore the theme of life and death and explains their perspectives on it. Both of the short stories have similar titles, but both pieces exhibit several differences. Annie Dillard starts off her short story by beginning the death of the moth and realizes the value of life. Virginia Woolf tells us that she sees the moth as a pathetic creature and sees that death is a powerful force that no one can stand up to. Both authors go into great detail pertaining to life and death.

‘“One could not help watching him. One, was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meager opportunities to the full, pathetic’” (Woolf 1). She continually pities the fact that the moth continues to make the most of his desperate and futile situation. No matter his frailty and impending doom, the moth continues to carelessly dance around the windowpane, either because he is unaware that he will soon die, or because he chooses not to care about his demise. However, Woolf begins to realize that the moth’s strength is failing him, and she comes to the cold conclusion that he is at death’s door. Not soon after that, the moth senses that his strength is failing him, but even upon knowing his inevitable death, the moth continues to fight. Woolf’s heart goes out to the insect. ‘“It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself. One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life (Woolf 2)’”. She resolves to root for the moth, and applaud his final protest against death. By the use of her writing style, Woolf has caused the audience to root for the moth’s final efforts along with her. By getting so emotionally

Without remembering, humanity will ultimately destroy the entire planet, the only place we have to live, and the only place that supplies us with life and therefore a future. “The Death of The Moth” holds on to this idea but reinvents the meaning of life and

Young, beautiful, and doomed; In several, if not all, works of Edgar Allan Poe, there is a not so subtle theme that is found. One of the death and beauty. How is the death of a young woman romanticized within selected works of Edgar Allan Poe? In such works as “Lenore”, “Ulalume”, popular “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven”, and short story “The Oval Painter” ,the “death of a beautiful woman” theme is prevalent and strongly noted within context, word choice, and imagery. In the eyes of Edgar Allan poe, death, especially that of a woman, to be lamented and mourned by a “bereaved lover”, is the most valued tool to have and utilize when writing. In his own life, Poe was able to relate to the subject matter, as many of his heroins are believed to be based upon his wife Virginia, who had died at a young age. Unraveling the methods to how Poe romanticized death of young women in his literature might give insight to not only Poe’s life, but humanity in general..

Dillard states, “ Is this what we live for? Is the final beauty: the color of any skiing in any light, and living, human eyes? Would you be a writer, you can’t be anything else?” The nature of a writer is that of like the burning moth, for the beauty of it is not seen until the writer has finished his story like that of the moth whose beauty is not seen until the fire has ignited its body and all that is left is its

Woolf’s essay was published a year after her death by suicide. As per my thoughts, she wrote it close to the time of her death. Woolf’s claim was that nothing has any chance against death. She supports that claim not only with the image of the short life of the (one-day) moth, but also with reminders that the same energy that sends the moth fluttering against the window pane also “inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean bare-backed downs.” The warrants that underlie the claim are the undisputed facts about the moth’s limitations:

Two of Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” and “Because I could not stop for Death” are both written about life’s stopping point, death. Although the poems are written by the same poet, both poems view death in a different manner. Between the two poems, one views death as having an everlasting life while the other anticipates everlasting life, only to realize it does not exist. While both poems are about death, both poems also illustrate that the outcome of death is a mysterious experience that can only be speculated upon with the anticipation of everlasting life.

The Caterpillar is a poem which focuses on the previously overlooked actions some of us may partake in, that may not be thought much of, but have short and long lasting effects on a scale we might not be very familiar with. Do we feel remorse for living organisms on a small macroscopic level, or is it just an insignificant part of our complex lives? Is the appreciation of life developed through experiences? Do we feel more pity for a single being that has been through trauma than we do for thousands that have not? In this poem, the conflict between caterpillars and humans is discussed in a such a way that brings up questions about how valuable we perceive other life to be, and how different

In Mrs. Dalloway, references to life and death are seen frequently throughout the entire novel. It would not be correct to claim that Mrs. Dalloway focuses more on one or the other, for the novel brings attention to both life and death. Virginia Woolf exhibits these profound ideas through the thoughts of her characters in Mrs. Dalloway. The thought of death is constantly lurking in the thoughts of each character, and it makes even the most ordinary events become meaningful, and sometimes threatening.

It is through the element of structure that Virginia Woolf, firstly communicates her outlook in regards to consciousness, speech and speculative thought. Woolf represents consciousness in her structural employment of hyphens, which is used in order to show the mental process behind thought. Hyphens appear mainly in compound words and the joining of prefixes, however, in the paragraph’s inception Woolf uses the hyphen to convey the merging of detached thoughts through the character of Mrs Ramsey. Mrs Ramsey thoughts match her actions as she clearing up her son’s cut-out pictures ‘he had cut out a refrigerator, a mowing machine, a gentleman in evening dress - children never forget’, it is solely through the employment of a hyphenated sentence, that Woolf is enabled to convey to the reader that the latter thought Mrs Ramsey’s conjures is retrospective. The action of tidying the cut-out pictures is interrupted by a recent memory of her husband’s refusal to go to the lighthouse. This sentence demonstrates one of the main aspects of consciousness and thought in To The Lighthouse. The process of thought has no consecutive timeline or chronological order and can interrupt and juxtapose physical actions, which makes the employment of the hyphen an important choice in effectively depicting this often incomprehensible process. In addition to this, the hyphen dually breaks the pattern of rhythmic, perfect, pre-composed speech which is frequent in traditionalist literature, whereas

Moth Smoke is an excellent example of the type of transformative literature Eagleton’s liberal humanists campaign for—this novel attempts to widen the circle of empathy of the reader.