Don Marquis's 'The Lesson Of The Moth'

Every living thing on this earth has at least one thing in common, life. Every person/creature chooses to live their lives in their own way. If one should reach the short poem “the lesson of the moth” they would see two very different views on how one should live their life. Some people choose to live like the safe Roach, some people choose to live like the rash moth, and some people choose to live with a beautiful blend of the two.

Throughout “The Death of the Moth,” the main theme is derived from the observation and recognition. By observing the moth’s little movement to revive, Woolf recognizes the connection between life and death, and the receptive attitude towards the death. We usually do not really care or learn a lesson from a moth’s behavior. We usually think a moth is a little, insignificant creature. Same as readers, Woolf initially dismisses and devalues the moth and his motions.

Throughout the story, archy and the moth show their conflicting views on life. One excerpt where archy shows his views is “i do not agree with him myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity”. What archy is saying is that he would like to live a long life, even if he is not as happy as someone who lives a short live but is very happy during their life. The moth thinks of it differently. He says “plenty of [sense] he answered but at times we get tired of using it and crave beauty and excitement fire is beautiful and we know that if we get too close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment

Many people concern themselves with the goal of living the most satisfying life possible. While some seek a peaceful existence, others hope for prosperity and high social standing. Throughout Voltaire’s “Candide,” the main character’s search for a content lifestyle is what drives most of his adventures. During Candide’s travels, he attempted to honor the teachings of his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, who believed “things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end” (Voltaire, 101). Although these lectures seemed logical, Candide learned that the only way to live a satisfactory life in “the best of all possible worlds” was to enjoy isolation, work hard, and have a purpose in society. He concluded this at the end of the story when he explained to Martin, his travel companion, and Pangloss that “we must cultivate our garden”

Woolf experiences a wave of mixed emotions, thoughts, and reminders while patiently watching the phenomenon unfold in front of her. The author describes the moth’s movements as it flies corner to corner and perceives it as life’s most primal form, for she states: “ . . . the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body” (410). As she continues to observe the fluttering creature, the moth is seen as a metaphor for life itself for it is "nothing but life" (410) and “a form of the energy” (410). The reference of energy connects to what she introduces in the beginning of her essay by recognising that both the moth and herself—as well as all humans—are given life by the same vibrant energies. Through this realisation, Woolf develops

Virginia Woolf was an extraordinary author that was born in London, 1882. Woolf wrote many novels during her lifetime such as “Mrs. Dalloway” and “The Waves.” She was considered one of the greatest twentieth-century writers that wrote non-fiction. Virginia Woolf committed suicide in 1941 at age fifty-nine due to severe depression.

The poem begins with a description of a scene familiar to many, "an ant on a tablecloth…" Then the ant bumps into a day drowsy moth that is much larger than him. The ant seems a tad bit jealous that the moth lacks the amount of responsibility that ants are burdened with. The ant thinks that if the moth were one of his own race he'd chastise him and send him back to work. He describes how the ant society is much more sophisticated and

A life spent doing things one doesn’t find joy in is a life wasted. Equality tried to convince himself that he liked street sweeping, so that he could repent of his transgressions of preference, but he never succeeded he always knew he was not meant to do that, “we loved the science of things.” He even said that he loved science, he didn’t love street sweeping he hated it, at no time did he ever like sweeping, and if he kept doing it it would have broken his

The poem refers to weapons that fire death and the deaths of the animals that will cause the people to starve. The white people will also contaminate the water which will poison the people and cause them to experience a drought. The white people will also kill entire villages and tribes of people and the people who survive will die anyway from the sadness of the loss of their people. The story also refers to the new sicknesses the people will face and die off from. The new people bring a variety of new consequences with them when they come to the world inhabited by the native peoples. The natives are killed off or die from the interactions with the new people. They brought with them new technologies and diseases that the inhabitants had never interacted with before. Likewise, the new people were introduced to new animals they had never seen before and in their fear killed them, which caused the native people to starve and die. The native’s lives and livelihoods were destroyed by the white people. Their food sources, water sources and land were taken from them. The native’s culture identity was negatively impacted by their interactions with the white people through the killing off of their tribes and

15. The louse is symbolic to the poem because it symbolizes poor people. It plays an important if not the most important role in the poem. The woman who has the bug doesn’t notice even having the bug which symbolizes the social classes.

Overall, butterflies and moths are used to represent the transformations many of the characters have taken throughout the story.The novel as many different references to the butterflies and moths. Butterflies are sometimes seen as the spirits of the dead. They can also be used to represent a journey through life. Willa Cather used the insects to compare some of the characters to, and to explain Emil and Marie. In Conclusion, butterflies can represent much more than a insect with wings.

She talks of a caterpillar as an innocent creature on this earth that can do no harm. The poem then discusses the unnecessary killing of that innocence. Caterpillars mind their own business and do not mean to harm anyone while trying to complete their metamorphosis or better known as the butterfly cycle. Killing an innocent creature simply because they are pests is wrong, especially due to the issue that everything in the natural world is interconnected. When killing creatures’, humans are tampering with nature’s natural cycle because every animal has a specific spot on the food chain.

In the short stories, both Hawthorne and Poe communicate the Romantic and Gothic element of the unachievable aspect of the sublime, which expresses the relationship of creation between each text. In “The Artist of the Beautiful”, Owen, an insightful watchmaker, devotes his entire life to replicate the beauty in nature and strives to perfect it into the form of a mechanical butterfly. Owen succeeds in his creation of “Nature’s ideal butterfly”, but this comes only for a short spell before Peter Hovenden’s grandson destroys the beautiful machine (Hawthorne, “The Artist” 1153). Hawthorne notes how “the painter leaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its imperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if be no irreverence to say

Woolf takes the death of the moth and mirrors it to the action of the day outside. As the moth reaches its final grasps of life, the day as well dies down as the moth meets its final end. She begins with a lively scene of, “The plough was already scoring the field opposite the window, and where the shade had been, the earth was pressed flat and gleamed with moisture” (Woolf par. 1), while the moth is fluttering and dancing around. Then near the end, as the moth is fading away, the day as well begins to go deathly still, “Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation” (Woolf par. 5). The deliberate organization of Woolf’s essay contributes to her tone of hopefulness which turns into

In the beginning of the essay, Woolf saw the moth’s life as pathetic. She pitied it for its lack of potential, and felt as though the energy of life was wasted on such a miniscule creature. This feeling of disdain towards the moth is evident when Woolf states, “The possibilities of pleasure seemed that day so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life... seemed a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic.” In this quote, Woolf is highlighting the difference between the limitless potential she sees in the world and the miniscule potential of the moth, who can do little but flutter against her window. Through this comparison, it is clear that Woolf looks down upon the moth, even going so far as to call its existence a “hard fate” compared to the lives of the other creatures. However, despite her judgment, the moth seems to