Shaun Paul Carandang
Seminar #6
English 99/101
13 February 2018
In her essay, "The Death of the Moth," Virginia Woolf examines the moth because she wanted to see if the moth survives or not. At the beginning, she starts her essay with a moth that came out somewhere in her house and she begin to observe its actions. She notices that the moth is going back and forth using his wings to fly around the room. The moth continues to fight against nature because he wanted to live and Woolf feels a sense of encouragement for its actions. The moth didn't end up living because the death is powerful and we can't control that. Although she attempts to protect the moth which the moth is upside-down, the death of nature still takes him. I think the moth appears to accept his life and fate as the legs stopped moving.
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The moth has a dignity because he was trying his best to fight, but he didn't end up living which is terrible. I think this the cause people notice her reason to freely give up her own life to be vague. Then the tone of this essay is when she starts with a full of life at the beginning and end with the death of the insect which it's saddening. After that, the tone changes in every paragraph which I can imagine the pictures, and she did a fantastic job by drawing a picture to help us to understand. She has a lot of sensory details which it's wonderful because I can imagine that what she's trying to say. She didn't send this information with reasoning, but instead with sensations and passions. I think her style of writing changes to dark to peaceful because she didn't help the moth at first then she realizes that the moth needs help to fly around. I wonder how much time she spent observing the moth and how many days she spent observing
Does someone need to die in order to gain and obtain equality amongst the others? In the novel In Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, the main character and the subordinate character affect the plot of the novel because they develop a strong relationship. Their relationship becomes so strong that they devise a rebellion. Their rebellion had many outcomes whether being possible or negative. They manage to get equality and respect amongst the people of their land, but they sacrifice their lives and others to obtain it.
The effect of Dillard calling the moth a “she” instead of “it” shows that it’s a person who she deeply regrets killing off. Since Dillard killed off the moth she finished her earthy work on a writing scale.
While staying at Mel’s home, the adolescent female narrator personifies the butterfly paperweight. The life cycle begins with the narrator “hearing” the butterfly sounds, and believing the butterfly is alive. The butterfly mirrors the narrator’s feelings of alienation and immobility amongst her ‘new family’ in America. She is convinced the butterfly is alive, although trapped inside thick glass (le 25). The thick glass mirrors the image of clear, still water. To the adolescent girl, the thick glass doesn’t stop the sounds of the butterfly from coming through; however, her father counteracts this with the idea of death, “…can’t do much for a dead butterfly” (le 31). In order to free the butterfly, the narrator throws the disk at a cabinet of glass animals, shattering the paperweight, as well as the glass animals. The shattering of the glass connects to the shattering of her being, and her experience in fragility. The idea of bringing the butterfly back to life was useless, as the motionless butterfly laid there “like someone expert at holding his breath or playing dead” (le 34). This sense of rebirth becomes ironic as the butterfly did not come back to life as either being reborn or as the manifestation of a ghostly spirit; instead its cyclic existence permeates through the narrator creating a transformative
In the essay “The Death of the Moth,” Annie Dillard discusses her observation of a moth being burned in a candle. As she continues to witness the moth’s death, Dillard fiercely describes the flaming insect as “glowing within, like a building fire glimpsed through silhouette walls.” Through this, Dillard invites the reader into her thought process with the comparison of the moth and death. After the moth died, it continued to burn and give off a radiant glow. Dillard continues to observe the insect, saying it “began to act as a wick.” The moth’s ability to illuminate the surroundings and intensify the flame of the candle portrays the idea that death is not the end of the impact a being of life has on earth. Dillard continues her analogy by applying it to her own life, hoping that her “light” will continue to burn after her death. Dillard aspires that her existence will not shrivel up and crumble like the other moths do after they die, that she will continue to enlighten her readers even after she is dead. She wants her audience to be inspired by her writing, impacting them as she was impacted by the moth. Her change in tone throughout the essay suggests her acknowledgment of importance for all things of life no matter how large or small. Dillard discovers that something as small as a moth still
Goodall uses the word fascination, this word show her enthusiasm about the beetle. For example, using the word fascination instead of ‘interest’. The author create tones using different words to give the reader appeal on her portrayal. Before, Jane Goodall present her reasons of what purpose she wanted to talk about The American Beetles. By adding evidence to support her reason about beetles would be convincing included she does gave emotional sentences and some examples like she added a claim “Why We Need the Burying Beetle” to present the argument that the beetles are significant and the claim about “Beetle Co-parenting” which It described of how the parent beetles and child’s relationships. Goodall has share empathy like American beetles
Insects may be the bane of some people’s existence, but the creatures are truly strong globes of energy, going about their lives, flitting to and fro. Thoreau and Woolf both captured this essential spirit in their writing. In “Battle of the Ants” and “The Death of the Moth,” both writers observe other life forms, but the way in which they perceive the insects struggles vastly differs. According to an online biography, Thoreau’s exposure to transcendentalism as well as his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson both shaped his writing to emphasize “the importance of empirical thinking and of spiritual matters over the physical world,” whereas Virginia Woolf’s parents raised her to be free thinking which resulted
In the story “The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf illustrates the universal struggle between life and death. She portrays in passing the valiance of the struggle, of the fight of life against death, but she determines as well the futility of this struggle. Virginia Woolf’s purpose in writing was to depict the patheticness of life in the face of death. Woolf’s conclusion, “death is stronger than I am,” provides the focus of her argument. Throughout the piece, she has built up her case, lead to reader emotional states its concept of the power of death. The piece would begi...
It is clearly apparent that "The Moths" is not only the title, but also an important piece of the story which embodies its central theme. The moths become the catalyst that gives identity to the grandmother and her granddaughter, bringing revelation, security, rebirth, and the desire to be reunited. The grandmother, in becoming a moth herself, leaves some of herself behind with her grandchild.
One article article analyzing The Death of the Moth writes: “With the use of the pronoun “he,” we see how Woolf anthropomorphizes the moth, and in that vein she continues the metamorphosis… He is not just a representative of a species; he is an individual” (Dubino). By changing her description from moths in general to this single moth, Woolf has created a subject that can be given human-like thoughts and feelings. She refers to the moth as “he” throughout the rest of the essay to personify
Virginia Woolf’s “Death of the Moth” is a short story centered around the life and death of a moth on a beautiful day. Although the essay tells the story of the life a moth, many aspects of the piece such as its mood, can be mirrored to life in general. In the story, Virginia Woolf gradually changes the mood from an energetic and lively mood to a gloomy and quiet one through her use of active verbs, vivid imagery and varying sentence structure in order to accurately depict the darkness and ignominy of death.
creature does not want to be alive any more, as he does not love the world he lives in any more, and this is the world we live in. I think this is how Mary Shelley wanted to achieve ‘thrilling horror’, she created a monster that was so different to us on the outside but on the inside was very much alike, and it is frightening that we never really notice what he is like on the inside until the end. We now realise that from judging someone, it can have long lasting and damaging effects on them, and this is something that we can learn from Mary Shelley.
Geraldine Brooks the author of People of the Book conveys the story of Sarajevo Haggadah. In the chapter “An Insect’s Wings,” Lola, a young Jewish girl, experiences running away from Nazis and coming back to Sarajevo. In this chapter, it also shares some details of how the famed Sarajevo Haggadah was saved from WWII. This chapter shares the journey of Lola and all the unpleasant events she went through.
Unexpectedly, the moth was nearing death as it approaches the moth. Woolf compared the small moth to a machine as it stops moving momentarily. She stated “..for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure.” The comparison enables the reader to understand that after the useless attempts to get up, the moth laid unmoving which demonstrates that life will eventually end as death strikes. Also, Woolf use pathos to enable a stronger feeling that life will never last long as it will end. According to the story, Woolf stated; “He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window pane..” In other words, death is a powerful and strong thing that strikes the butterfly, leaving it unmoving. This gives the reader the emotion of empathy for the butterfly, as it continues to attempt useless tactics. Lastly, before death took over the body of the butterfly, the speaker wanted to give assistance to the butterfly yet denied the chance. The assistance given was symbolized by a pencil that the speaker uses; “But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that failure and awkwardness were the approach of death.” The pencil represents the assistance that life gives to each person before they die. It also means that through all the struggle in life, there will always be a chance that may help a person go through life, or it will turn
She reveals that the moth has the passionate desire to live. She used a word choice of “superb,” and “gigantic effort” in order to illustrate the moth puts [his] enormous effort despite his “helplessness” and “awkwardness” when facing death. Woolf describes moth’s struggle as “marvelous as well as pathetic” and it conveys the idea that no matter how hard one fights against the approach of death, it is overpowering of all creatures. The Death of the Moth seems to criticize on the oppression of men or prevalence of masculinity in society where caused the struggles of women at that time. The battle against death is related to the movement that Virginia Woolf had pursued, becoming a feminist, where she was sexually abused by her half-brother which played a part to aware of herself as a woman. The relationship between life and death in our lives reveals Woolf’s belief that she tried to induce the reader to lead to the conception of the power of death. Throughout the essay, the death was described in many different ways. The essay start...
...gives a very good perspective of what is being described creating obscurity and maybe disgust in and out of the story. The way he uses the language enhances the image of the moth injecting terror into the environment and we can see that this is effective because of the reaction of the character “The skin prickled across the back of his neck” this is similar if not the same as to when your hairs on your arms stand up which is a sign of anxiety.