Preview

Life and Moth

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
307 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Life and Moth
“The Death of the Moth” Analysis
In Virginia Woolf’s short essay “The Death of the Moth”, Woolf uses combat imagery to portray the vulnerability of all creatures on Earth to death, but also to show how some will not give up without a fight. Witnessing the moth’s death, Wolf realizes that it tries to hold onto life before giving up. She shows the patheticness of death, but also shows respect for the power death has over life. When Woolf first notices the moth, she reflects on how the moth enjoys it’s repetitive every day schedule. Watching the moth flutter from corner to corner, she could tell that it “seemed to be content with life.” Although his days were simple and repetitious, he obviously did not mind. Because the moth was so pure and small, anything could harm it. Little did the moth know that his time was running out, the combat imagery used shows how death can take life from anyone and anything; event the purest of creatures. After realizing that the moth had stopped flying, Woolf noticed that the moth had “tried to resume his dancing” by fluttering around helplessly. After seven or so attempts of trying to regain himself, the moth “slipped to the wooden ledge and fell.” The use of combat imagery lets the reader see the struggle it is when facing death. No matter how hard the moth tried, it could not escape its fate. Woolf realizes that all human beings must go through this inevitable tragedy and thus gains respect for the moth trying to hold on to what was left of his life.
Virginia Woolf’s purpose in writing this piece is to remind us of the power that death has over life. She shows us the desperation of attempting to avoid death but also the inescapable ending of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    “Death of a Moth” is a short essay from the author, Annie Dillard, called Holy the Firm, and also one of her most personal essay that she’s ever written. It is about the burning moths, her belief in God, and acceptance of her faith to being a writer. She uses the death of the moths to tell us nature’s cycle of life. Everything is the same, human and animal, life and death. In the end, they will all end up like the moth being burned up by candle light.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Woolf vs. Petrunkevitch

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Woolf’s tone seen throughout her piece is pity and futility. This is seen and solidified in paragraph 2 when the speaker pities the moth for being a moth on a day where so much joy and wonder is possible for other living things. She sees the moth’s actions as futile as it zigzags back and forth between the two sills. She begins to relate with the moth in this way that life seems futile. Petrunkevitch uses a tone that is personal while at the same time staying professional. This tone is similar to that of Woolf in the way that although Woolf’s written perspective doesn’t suggest that she is connecting to the moth she does actually solidly say that she is interested in its actions and is “roused” by its attitude. Petrunkevitch clearly shows interest in the subjects that he talks about. He is “roused” by the spider’s actions as the digger wasp slowly closes off all of its hopes of escape.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the essay "The Death of the Moth" Virginia Woolf shows us a traditional battle between life and death. I think that all of us are moths at some points in our lives. We do something without thinking and results. The life is a journey towards death. That's why we should stop sometimes and think. Or everything will go through us and will finish nowhere. I think that this is a symbolism in Virginia Woolf's story about the moth.…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the death of a moth essay, Virginia wood uses the moth to symbolize to us humans and life in it. The message is once the symbolism of the moth is understood it quite clear. In the essay the moth flies from side to side on the window pane and it seemed that the moth was unaware of its movements. At first she doesn't care much about the moth, but later on she starts to feel sympathy for the moth as it lay on its back trying to get back up. She tried helping the Moth but then it dies in its position. She states '' Just as life had been strange a few minutes before. So death was now strange. '' This shows that she believes that life, even death, is recognized by us…

    • 136 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In A Lesson before Dying the author uses the butterfly to represent growth, hope, and life. In the book the author also used the butterfly as a symbol of resurrection and rebirth. While reading the book both men had problems that needed fixed. The main topic is Jefferson’s wrongful conviction. Also, the butterfly mainly represents Jefferson after his execution.…

    • 200 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annie Dillard's essay "The Death Of A Moth" made no sense to me when I initially read it, in a "sleep-deprived" state. In the haze my mind was in, during the battle with my body and my desire to read this essay, all I could make out was that; she berated the small cat about her short-term memory before kicking her out of the bed they shared. She then proceeded to the bathroom to consort with a spider whose attire reminded her of a day when she murdered a moth. She spoke about the carnage, her sharply dressed friend the spider left, behind the toilet, seemingly admiring the skillful way in which the evidence of the massacre was displayed.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annie Dillard wrote an essay, “Death of a Moth,” which is from her book, Holy the Firm. Dillard’s essay, “Death of a Moth,” starts off with the author talking about a couple of dead moths behind her toilet in her bathroom. Then Dillard starts reminiscing about an encounter she had with a moth on a camping trip she took by herself in Virginia. While Dillard was reading a book, a moth flew into her tent and into her candle’s flame and burned. Then, Dillard starts analyzing the burning moth and starts taking notes on it in her journal. From the events of that camping trip, Dillard wrote the essay “Death of a Moth”. The reason Dillard wrote journals on the burning moth and devoted an essay on the moth is because she gained a lot of insight from the burning moth.…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The stories intentions aim at not only the physical pain of death, but the realization that a victim has no choice but to die. Whether the narrator chooses to jump into the pit or get separated by the pendulum, he faces an indistinguishable conclusion —death. This may not be the path any of us want to take in our life time, but in the end, we have no choice. This story strives to display his lack of choice while displaying hope when he does what some would call nearly impossible; he does not submit to the swooning and recruits his sensible abilities. When he awakes from his swoon, he faces complete darkness.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lesson of the Moth

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the poem “The Lesson of the Moth” writer Don Marquis compares two different lifestyles through a free spirited moth and a logical thinking human. The moth states that it is better to be a part of beauty and excitement for one instant and then cease to exist forever and never be a part of beauty. I agree with the moth because I would much rather live a shorter life appreciating and experiencing a better connection to God’s creation and gaining a better understanding of the creator, then to have a long boring life of just sitting on the side. There are also several of examples throughout history of people dying young to the flame. For example, Mozart mastered music and toured Europe while composing several great works of music before dying at the young age of 35. Abraham Lincoln also accomplished many things before he died young. He said, “In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” This means that it doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s how you actually lived your life throughout the years that counts in the end. In the Bible however, James 4:14 reminds us how precious of a gift life is “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Just like the pastor from the Motorcycle accident this week, this bible verse reminds us all of how close we are to the…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the essay “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf and “The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard, the two authors use the image of a moth to find out about their places in life. Instead of choosing any other animals, they use the death of the moth to describe death as an inevitable part of life. However, each author approaches and describes the death of the moth with different feeling. Woolf describes the moth in a calm peaceful setting where energy only rest in the little moth. This will further worsen the event as the death of the moth approaches closely as the energy starts to disappear and put everything back to quiet. On the other hand, Dillard first saw the moth when she came to the urban area to get inspired to write again. She found…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Annie Dillard Sacrifice

    • 1934 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Throughout the book, one of the most commonly used motifs is a moth, whether it is being eaten by a spider, or burned on a candle, the moth’s death is a commonly used symbol for sacrifice. The moth is first brought up where it is being eaten by a spider, but the best imagery of the dying moth first appears on pages sixteen and seventeen, where a moth flies onto the candle and is burned to death. And I paraphrase this…

    • 1934 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This piece is formulated through an allegory which exists on both a literal and figurative level. Virginia Woolf relates the struggles that a moth, which is so vulnerable to death to the everyday life of the human struggle. Implicitly, Woolf describes the moth to have value like individuals as they try to put a stop to death in the same sense like humans do.…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holy the Firm

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages

    2. The most climactic event of Dillard’s narrative is when the female moth goes into the flame of the candle and her body is shriveling and crumbling away. She connects it with what she sees in the bathroom because the hollow body of the female moth didn’t crumble and became a second wick on the candle, so therefore she knew what empty moth bodies looked like.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    COMPARING MOTH AND CAVE

    • 550 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Virginia Woolf describes a certain specimen of moth and how its simply ok with its simplicity and then goes on to describe the present day that the writer is living in. She grabs the readers interest and sets the tone for the remainder of the story. “Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay-colored wings, fringed with a tassel of the same color, seemed to be content with life. It was a pleasant morning,…

    • 550 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Woolf is a writer that surprises the reader and audience the more they look into her works. She incorporates a unique style and deep meaning to every sentence she writes. In the story, Woolf comes up with many unique metaphors such as the Angel of the House, the fisherman, and the plain rooms. The Angel of the House restricts the free-flowing mind of a women and her ideas. The fisherman is described to be a girl in a dream where she is able to be free and have ideas of her own. Her dream ends when her “line” got lost and her dream ended (309). The plain rooms that Woolf brings up describes how women have to be careful of what they “decorate” because they were limited on what they were allowed to share. All these metaphors were different but the same in their own way. Woolf incorporated multiple metaphors to be consistent with her variety and not have one metaphor repeated throughout the story. Throughout the speech, Woolf keeps this consistent tone of pride which allows the audience to get this strong sense of how proud she is by overcoming obstacles as a writer while influencing others to do the same. The audience is moved by her story because it accurately depicts how women have minimal voice of their own during this time. She tells this story using her own unique style, word choice, and…

    • 1390 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays