The Importance of Birds in Virginia Woolf's The Waves Essay

Throughout her essay, Woolf never once describes to us her immediate surroundings. By describing only what is outside, Woolf isolates herself from the rest of the world, instead of embracing it as Dillard did. She is chiefly concerned with describing where she isn't. Her focus is on the world outside of her window. She describes the field that is being plowed, the black, net-like flock of birds flying together. These images engender a rather unpleasant feeling of dreariness.

"The Death of the Moth," written by Virginia Woolf, explains the brief life of a moth corresponding with the true nature of life and death. In this essay, Woolf puts the moth in a role that represents life. Woolf makes comparisons of the life outside to the life of the moth. The theme is the mystery of death and the correspondence of the life of the moth with the true nature of life. The images created by Woolf are presented that appeal to the eye. For instance, the moth's body during the death is appealing to the eye. The image makes the reader more interested. The essence of true life is energy. As Woolf describes, "I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was

Woolf organizes her writing using various forms of syntax which contributes to the significance of the memory. The author’s portrayal of the setting is recounted with long, detailed sentences in order to illustrate its importance. The excitement of fishing is depicted as Woolf retells “Sometimes the lines would be handed to us; baited by gobbets cut from fish; and the line thrilled in one’s fingers as the boat tossed and shot through the water” (12-15). The author includes multiple semicolons not only to extend the sentence, but to also present similar ideas in a like structure. Notably, the author conveys tactile imagery to support the lengthy sentences with compelling details. The tossing of the boat and the touch of the fishing line embodies the exciting chaos the author had felt in the past. As a result, readers are then able to understand the specific attributes of Woolf’s memory that made the experience significant. Additionally, Woolf further develops the impact of her excitement as she describes “…and then- how can I convey the excitement? - there was a little leaping tug...” (15-17). Again, lengthy sentence structure helps to connect the images of her memory. The dashes communicate to readers a sense of the author’s internal thoughts, as if she was writing all that was on her mind. The dashes outline changes in the flow of the language, so that readers can note clearly defined shifts. They also symbolize the vividness of her memories, therefore the significance of the events in her situation. Unique from the majority of the sentences, Woolf includes declarative structure as she states “It was a perfect lesson” (25). The line stands out to the readers, amongst the other sentences, because of its length, which is intended to convey an idea directly. The

Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House differentiates itself from the four other novels that make up the 'Manawaka series' that has helped establish her as an icon of Canadian literature. It does not present a single story; instead, it is a compilation of eight well-crafted short stories (written between the years 1962 and 1970) that intertwine and combine into a single narrative, working as a whole without losing the essential independence of the parts.

(213). The narrator once again speaks of the sea as if it were human. Stating the “waves paced to and fro” and “the great sea’s voice”, he gives the sea life and a voice. Having figures of speech such as these gives the story life and a vivid

When the boys find the dying bird, it is the first sign of the loss of innocence, because the bird is a symbol of childlike curiosity and consequently, innocence. When the bird dies it symbolises the death, or loss of innocence. When summer finally comes to a close, Ari says “Summer had come and gone. And the world was ending” (154). The summer, when Ari has his innocence, is ending and Ari’s innocent world is ending as well. After the summer, Ari experiences the horrors of the world for the first time. Ari faces the reality that not everyone in the world is accepting after seeing his relatives cast out his lesbian Aunt, Ophelia, and seeing the boys in the alley beat up Dante and his boyfriend. Ari also faces the reality of a broken heart after he sees Ileana drop out of school to marry the boyfriend who impregnated her. These experiences cause him to lose his innocent ideas of the world and

When she mentions death arriving, she writes her sentences at the short at the end. Another example from her essay would be, “It was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breathe from that of the summer months.” (para 1) to the transition of, “ I looked out doors. ” (para 5) This also shows how now she is being less descriptive and to the point where she focuses on the moth’s quick death instead of his surroundings. It is as if she wants to portray time to have stopped as she is conveying a less poetic feeling towards the end. This syntax style of writing has significance to her purpose, as it creates a dramatic effect for the moth’s inevitable death as well as providing a suspenseful feeling to her essay.

Often the descriptions, favoring the night to the day, are subtle but quantitatively apparent. The title of the book itself, is supposed to be summary of Katherine and Mary’s foil to each other, as they differ like “Night and Day.” But, Woolf’s fascination with the night sky contributes more to her favor of one character over the other. The book ends with Katherine’s engagement and overall ignorant bliss, but Mary remains a sole axis of freedom, as she denies Ralph Denham’s proposal, even though she is in love with him.

     Death is a difficult subject for anyone to speak of, although it is a part of everyday life. In Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth”, she writes about a moth flying about a windowpane, its world constrained by the boundaries of the wood holding the glass. The moth flew, first from one side, to the other, and then back as the rest of life continued ignorant of its movements. At first indifferent, Woolf was eventually moved to pity the moth. This story shows that life is as strange and familiar as death to us all. I believe this story was well written and will critique the symbolism, characters, and the setting.

“ You want to be the same as American girls on the outside.” (Tan, Amy) Like Tan in her narrative “Fish Cheeks”, everyone has had a time in their lives when they wanted to fit in at school or home. Sometimes it is hard to try to blend into the surroundings. Moving from Boston to Tallahassee has taught me a lot about such things like honor, pride, and self-reliance. Such is related to us in Wilfred Owens’s “Dulce et Decorum est” which is about his experience in World War I. Sometimes experiences such as moving can teach more about life than any long lecture from any adult. As the old saying goes: “Actions speak louder than words.”

Post World War I London society was characterized by a flow of new luxuries available to the wealthy and unemployment throughout the lower classes. Fascinated by the rapidly growing hierarchal social class system, Virginia Woolf, a young writer living in London at the time, sought to criticize it and reveal the corruption which lay beneath its surface. Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf’s fourth novel, was born in 1925 out of this desire precisely. A recurring focus in many of Woolf’s major novels is the individual and his or her conscious perceptions of daily life. Throughout Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf uses this technique, known as a “stream-of-consciousness,” to trace the thoughts of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith during one day in London five years after the Great War. It is exactly this narrative technique which allows Woolf to compare the lives of these two characters which belong to different social classes to argue that social placement has a negative effect on one’s life and psychological being.

The short story "The Birds" was written by Daphne du Maurrier and was filmed and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It has a very interesting and suspenseful plot. The short story was well written and the film was well played, both are very similar. Although, they have a few differences the film and short story have the same mood and theme. Would the differences in the film and the short story affect the suspenseful and frightening plot?Alfred Hitchcock did an outstanding job filming the movie matching it with the short story. In both the short story and film flocks and flocks of gulls, robins, and sparrows join each other.

When speaking of modernism in the work Virginia Woolf, scholars too readily use her innovations in style and technique as the starting point for critical analysis, focusing largely on the ways in which her prose represents a departure from the conventional novel in both style and content. To simply discuss the extent of her unique style, however, is to overlook the role of tradition in her creation of a new literary identity. In To the Lighthouse, Woolf's invention reveals itself instead as a reinvention, a recasting of the conventional through the use of the traditional. Within the text, this relationship manifests itself in Lily Briscoe's relationship with Mrs. Ramsay and the extent to which

On the other hand, Mrs. Ramsay acts the role of the perfect wife with her warmth, kindness and praise in contrast to Mr. Ramsay that is presented as oppressive. As Naremore suggests, “The narrator is interested not in a report of the scene's action, but in its rhythm, in the light healing pulse of Mrs. Ramsay's sympathy contrasted to Mr. Ramsay's harsh, repeated demands for more” (pg.132 of “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf, 1969).

As we read, Woolf’s novel, to the Lighthouse we see different aspects of art being used and how it is being used. Lily Briscoe plays a huge role in art in the story. She is working on a painting throughout the book but she does not want anyone to see it (Woolf 17-18). She feels that it is not good enough. However, Mrs. Ramsay, William Bankes and Charles Tansely seem to have different opinions about the painting. During Mrs. Ramsay’s dinner party, Lily realizes what she needs to do to fix her painting but does not until the end of the story. The painting itself grows and changes throughout the book, just as Lily grows and changes as a person as she lives her life (Woolf 102).