Two Extremes : Life And Death

In the short story, “The Moths”, the narrator, a fourteen year old girl, assumes the responsibility of taking care of her cancerous and dying Abuelita. Her Abuelita is the only person who understands the narrator and the only person she feels she can turn to. After having followed man’s rules for so many years, Abuelita passes away. All the moths that lived inside her are freed and the narrator learns some life lessons. Helena Maria Viramontes uses symbolism and setting to illustrate the oppression of women in “The Moths.”

Ted Kooser’s poem, “Surviving”, can be interpreted in many different ways. At first the poem seems to be about a man who is watching a bug being attentive to its surroundings and the bug having the fear of death. Another way to interpret this poem is that death is unrelenting. Even when the speaker seems to have ceased the image of death, it finds its way back. This is prevalent because the speaker starts talking about the fear of death, then altering the tone by describing this bug he witnesses. The speaker then leaves the reader uncertain at the end of the poem. Ted Kooser reveals the uncertainty of the bugs’ near future in the last line of the poem. A careful analysis of the poem, the poem is truly about a man in his final stages of life being attentive to death and the beauty of the bug he observes.

A trickiest aspect regarding growing up is considering death. It's something individuals truly don't like to think about, but thinking about mortality is pretty much an inevitable part of coming of age. Everybody does it at some point—you know because we're all going to die someday, as are our loved ones. You know the drill: Our grandma show us, cherish, then they get super old and die, and after that we slither into the bathtub with their corpses. It's just the circle of life. What's that? You've never taken a bath with a dead person? Well then you might be a little surprised by how things unfurl in Helena Maria Viramontes' 1985 short story "The Moths," a story about a youthful Latina girl who feels at odds with pretty much everybody in her family except her cherished Abuelita.

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.

Watching the hopeless death of the vulnerable moth leaves Woolf contemplating her own life, as she compares the moth to herself, and the human race. The moth, caught in a windowsill, is compared to the outside world by Woolf; while the moth flutters and exhibits life,

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. Dillard describes her surroundings living in a rural area and within her bathroom is a spider which Dillard reminds of a moth that she killed in her past when she sees the web that the spider has spun and how it has caught many bugs including two moths. She is intrigued by the dead moth’s bodies and givings a vivid description of the bodies While describing the moth’s dead torn body she relates it to a personal experience from her past where she watched a moth die with candle two years ago. Dillard described the burning moth in vivid

The symbolized inferior butterfly has been killed by a more superior human. Killing a butterfly doesn’t usually come to people as a huge occurrence but this really is a small event turned major because it alters the future timeline. The theme of this story is a metaphor on society because in the post-world war era this was an important message, one action from a high ranking official, or even a small person doing a dangerous deed could most definitely cause panic and have far greater impact on society, just as the two World Wars did.

Dillard also accomplishes to draw a strong parallel between herself and the symbol of this essay. As Dillard reads by candlelight, a “golden female Moth, a biggish one” flies into her candle, bringing itself to its own demise. Dillard closely analyzes this majestic Moth that has suddenly flapped itself to the center of her world. In paragraph five, after she has witnessed the Moth burn into bits and pieces, Dillard says “that candle had two wicks, two winding flames of identical light, side by side”. Dillard then begins to draw similarities between herself and the ill-fated moth. The moth was “golden” and “biggish” before she had flew into the fire, much like the writer that Dillard was like before she became a victim of writer's block. Dillard also draws a connection to religious figures in paragraph six, when she says “She burned... like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God.” A parallel that can be

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

”The grasshopper and the bell cricket” is a short story, written by Yasunari Kawabata, written in a narrative perspective of someone watching children searching for insects using colored and decorated lanterns. I would like to think that the author is trying to symbolize life, and that it is not only one path to go. We are all aiming for acceptance and to fit in to the society, but this story tells us that

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.

The world changes faster now than ever. At the same time, in general, when people grow into their adult selves, the world progresses at even a faster rate, due to the way that adults live and experience life. As such, there is a need to express what it is like to live in such a world, while being a certain age. Ian Frazier 's "In Praise of Margins" wonderfully illustrates what it means to be a child - who is so carefree and can play without reason or aim - as well as an adult, who must always find meaning and reason in their actions, even if it means at the cost of truly enjoying life, and thus question why humans live in the way that they do. Of course, I’m on his side.

In her article, Quinn uses multiple figurative languages to strengthen her claim that life after death does not exist. This is a very opinionated piece therefore using figurative language such as metaphors, simile, diction and symbols help enhance the validity of the author’s argument, while effectively giving her opinion to the readers in a subdued manner. Quinn’s use of the Ichneumon wasp as a symbol for the process of human life is a subtle way of writing it. Her article starts off with a detailed description of the physical features of a Female Giant Ichneumon Wasp, which then proceeds to a biology based background explanation on the specie. During her descriptions, Quinn uses carefully chosen words that is meant to let the reader go beyond imagining the wasp and to think of it as something more. She explains “Her overall appearance of fragility - the

Nevertheless the today’s world has no able to sweet smell it’s fragrance anymore. Perhaps the furious beetle couldn’t be assuaged by the story of the perching and hovering butterfly anymore. The perching butterfly were temptation, else the hovering butterfly were an ordeal indeed. Afterwards a sullenly the beetle destroyed it’s surrounded environment.

“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. “I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.” “It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. “Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into chrysalis – you will someday, you know – and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?” “Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.