Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

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

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.

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.

Analyzing her newfound appreciation sanctions Woolf to remind herself that life is precious. Reminding herself of life 's grandeur enables Woolf to then transfer the tone into her writing. Conveying the value of life, changes Woolf’s perspective. She values life more, but as she has learned earlier from the moth, sadness is inherent; sadness is brought by tragedy, like dying. Conclusively, Woolf’s use of pathos in her writing enabled her to present a clear tone, which contributed to the theme that death is inevitable.

In the poem “The Lesson of The Moth”, Don Marquis tells a story of a moth, an insect that have a strange habit of being attracted to the bright light or fire. The story is being told by a fictional character named Archy who is reincarnated author. The character finds the moth trying to break into a light bulb to get the light inside; when he asks why he is doing this, the moth gives an incredibly profound statement: “It is better to be a part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty.” To me, that is almost what life should be about. If we do not have that drive to or purpose then what is the point of living?

‘“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

     The character of the moth and the way that Woolf’s story unfolds makes you, as a reader, feel as if you are there actually watching the moth die. Her descriptions of the moth’s flight and the struggle against death as he lived his life that day involves you in the mourning of someone or something you love dying. You feel every movement that Woolf saw in the moth’s life that day by reading this essay. As Woolf describes how the moth “flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and after waiting there a second, flew across to the other, “ you can feel the moth’s movements (1178).

Virginia Woolf committed suicide just ten years after the publication of her novel The Waves. Throughout her life she struggled with bipolar disorder, anxiety, self-imposed isolation, misdiagnosis of her illnesses, repressed or closeted homosexuality in a time when being gay was illegal, and the deaths of many who she cared deeply for. Louise DeSalvo wrote a book on the life of Virginia Woolf and described the pattern that much of her childhood followed, “Sexual violence. Hopeless sadness. Powerlessness. Horrible depression. Being dragged down into a pit of absolute despair, from which there was no escape.” (106). As she fought with doctors through the misdiagnoses and strange medical

In The Death of the Moth we see this who is fluttering outside the narrator's window. We see how the moth, like everything else in the world, is soaking up the sun, which is also heating its little body with life. The moth in this story is like every other living thing on the planet earth. The moth wants to live and not die. This does not become apparent until later in the story. When we see the moth finally land, and we understand that this is his last struggle against death. A way of telling death that it could beat death. The moth struggles for what seems to be about a minute. The moth eventually dies on the window sill and death finally beats down its victim. This represents how many of people see someone on the street going about their everyday business, and nothing seems to be

There is a commonly used literary theme in modernist literary movements: death. The Victorian age was well known for its customs related to death and that death was considered high importance. The Victorian Era was well known for having a fascination with death and dying. World War one brought about the writing of more controversial issue about the war and the damage it did to the soldiers who fought in it and the affects it had no the home front. Literary novelist used the influence of the death of the Victorian age and deaths and tragedies of World War One to write novels that consisted of literal and metaphorical death amongst characters. Looking at Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and James Joyce’s The Dead there is a widely used theme of death that builds around the characters and shapes the way the characters develop and assist plot progression.

"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

She transforms her inside suffering into her writing. She wrote to give us a lot of emotions, make us feel what she feels and externalize this suffering in her own words. There are two characters in Virginia Woolf, the writer and the depressive woman. She was admired for her courage to speak about her diseases in her suicide letter without fear, even though she always had anxiety about death and madness. Virginia was shared between literacy and madness, in spite of being misunderstood, she knew that when she writes, everyone understands her and feels the emotions in her words. Her suicide is considered as a brave act, she represents one of the greatest woman writers ever. “She is appears to be flying, a fantastic figure” this is a beautiful description of her way to the death. We can see her as a hero. To commit suicide, she wanted to tell us that she wanted to be considering as a great literacy woman, and not as the crazy woman who had bipolar

In the story, “The Moth” the main character, who is the narrator, grandmother passes away. This is significant because she, the narrator, was very close the grandmother. She spent a lot of time at her house with her. Her

The Overall meaning of the poem, Dead Butterfly, is to let go of the past because life keeps going on.

There have been many tragic moments throughout the years, especially back when women weren’t treated unequally. Years have gone by and many women have fought for what they believed in which was equality between men and woman. In the 1920’s there were two people that tragically lost their lives fighting for what they believed in and what they sought out for. Women in past didn’t have rights or a voice, so this lead for a difficult era for women to have an opinion in anything, but to cater to the man of house.