The Meaning of the Moth
For class we read “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf and “The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard. This was the first time I had read either of these essays and I have found a new respect for their style of writing. I think that the amount of detail that they put into the two essays was astonishing. But, what impressed me the most was the difference between the types of detail.
In Dillard’s essay, she writes of her life alone and then skips over to a moth that she saw fly into a flame on her own free will. The way that Dillard describes the moth is almost like the way someone would describe a dream or a fantasy. She depicts the moth as “golden” and her wings like the wings of angels. These depictions draw a vivid image of the moth and how she looks while she is being burned alive. As compared to Dillard’s descriptions, Woolf paints a strong picture for the reader but does it in a different fashion. The way that Woolf describes the moth she encounters is much more precise. She uses a form of concrete imagery that excites the logical part of the brain. Sh...
Atypical things and creatures have been used in the form of symbolism for different stories and poems, and in the case of Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard, it has been the paltry creature of the moth to represent serious, significant subjects. Virginia Woolf uses a moth as a symbol for life, and as the moth is confined inside the windowpane, he struggles to live and eventually dies. This symbolizes the struggle to circumvent death, as life is treasurable. In the case of Annie Dillard, the moth is attracted to the candle flame, and ends up being burnt and shriveled by the flame. However, while the moth is being scorched, the flame burns brighter, denoting that everyone does have purpose after death, but this story also has religious meaning. Both authors, Annie Dillard and Virginia Woolf, use the same creature to signify different meanings and storylines.
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.
In the excerpt of Night, it states, “Dozens of starving men fought each other to the death for a few crumbs.” (Wiesel 105) This describes fear because to imagine that food is more important than one's’ life is scary to think about. People wanting to kill each other just to eat something is hard to think about. In the poem, “I Never Saw ANother Butterfly” it states “Butterflies don’t live in here, In the ghetto”(Friedman 16-17) This is an example of fear because this quote gives a sense of eeriness to the setting and it describes when he realizes that things will never be the same again. It also symbolizes he won’t just never see another butterfly but his home, family, and life will never be the same ever again. With death being inevitable not only would you be scared you would also be
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
The relationship between life and death is explored in Woolf’s piece, “The Death of a Moth.” Woolf’s own epiphany is presented in her piece; she invites her reader, through her stylistic devices, to experience the way in which she realized what the meaning of life and death meant to her. Woolf’s techniques allow her audience to further their own understanding of death and encourages them consider their own existence.
As stated in an online biography, Virginia Woolf’s life started out normally, she was born into a privileged English household with her three full and four half siblings and was raised by her well to do parents. Both of her parents “were extremely well connected, both socially and artistically” (Virginia Woolf Biography). Although her brothers went to college at Cambridge, her sisters, as well as Woolf herself, were schooled at home with access to an extensive Victorian library. Her open-minded parents brought her up to look at things from a different angle, rather than the straight forward route. Virginia Woolf is one of the few authors that uses the stream of consciousness writing style which immerses the reader in the text. In the case of “The Death of the Moth,” Woolf starts on a normal level, describing the “pleasant morning, mid-September”, and then dials in solely on the moth, to the point where one can visualize the energy the moth emits (Woolf). Not only that, but her stories, such as Mrs. Dalloway, raised awareness for controversial topics such as feminism, mental illness, and homosexuality. Because of her parents’ open mindedness, she was able to learn about a variety of topics while studying at home and form independent, non-socially influenced thoughts, which she later developed into her
“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf presses upon the matter of life and death through the author’s perspective of a mere day moth. Woolf uses the moth and its struggles as a metaphor about the inevitability of death and how humans are as susceptible to it as the smallest life forms. She paints a picture of life that is so pure that the reader has no choice but to feel pity towards the moth and its inability to do anything but try to fly. Woolf’s use of the moth as metaphor to show the purity of life is shown through her imagery and syntax. When Woolf is describing the September day in which she observed the moth, she romanticizes the imagery to something more pleasant that it probably was as a way to show the helplessness of the moth.
Annie Dillard portrays her thoughts differently in her passage, incorporating a poetic sense that is carried through out the entire passage. Dillard describes the birds she is viewing as “transparent” and that they seem to be “whirling like smoke”. Already one could identify that Dillard’s passage has more of poetic feel over a scientific feel. This poetic feeling carries through the entire passage, displaying Dillard’s total awe of these birds. She also incorporates word choices such as “unravel” and that he birds seem to be “lengthening in curves” like a “loosened skein”. Dillard’s word choice implies that he is incorporating a theme of sewing. As she describes these birds she seems to be in awe and by using a comparison of sewing she is reaching deeper inside herself to create her emotions at the time.
For Woolf the inanimate object that is at the center of her plot is the looking glass. It sees all, both inside and out, and its reflection is a foreshadowing of what unfolds in the story. It provides the foreshadow for a menacing presence and the mystery that follows, “Suddenly these reflections were ended violently and yet without a sound. A large black form loomed into the looking-glass; blotted out everything, strewed the table with a packet of marble tablets veined with pink and grey, and was gone” (Woolf, Longman 2454). The looking-glass is used to build the tension for the audience.
Woolf’s pathos to begin the story paints a picture in readers minds of what the
“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf and “The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard are two personal essays that are on the same topic, yet very different. Virginia Woolf was a pessimistic woman who was very serious and admired the simplicity of life, while Annie Dillard is an independent woman who is curious about life and finds it humorous. Life and death are perceived differently by these two authors; Woolf believes that death overpowers life and Dillard believes that death isn’t the final step of the life cycle
Edward Taylor’s Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold are similar in their approach with the illustration of how beautiful and magnificent God’s creations are to humankind. However, each poem presents tragic misfortune, such as the death of his own children in Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and the cold, enigmatic nature of human soul in Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold. Taylor’s poems create an element of how cruel reality can be, as well as manifest an errant correlation between earthly life and spiritual salvation, which is how you react to the problems you face on earth determines the salvation that God has in store for you.
In “Living Like Weasels,” the writer, Annie Dillard, is talking about weasels by describing some of their living habits and narrating her sudden encounter with a weasel which made her change her mind towards the real meaning of life. In her essay, Dillard is comparing weasels’ life with humans’ life, and in some parts she is favoring weasel’s life over our life since they live freely, but our freedom has been limited .
The extensive descriptions of Mrs. Dalloway’s inner thoughts and observations reveals Woolf’s “stream of consciousness” writing style, which emphasizes the complexity of Clarissa’s existential crisis. She also alludes to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, further revealing her preoccupation with death as she quotes lines from a funeral song. She reads these lines while shopping in the commotion and joy of the streets of London, which juxtaposes with her internal conflicts regarding death. Shakespeare, a motif in the book, represents hope and solace for Mrs. Dalloway, as his lines form Cymbeline talk about the comforts found in death. From the beginning of the book, Mrs. Dalloway has shown a fear for death and experiences multiple existential crises, so her connection with Shakespeare is her way of dealing with the horrors of death. The multiple layers to this passage, including the irony, juxtaposition, and allusion, reveal Woolf’s complex writing style, which demonstrates that death is constantly present in people’s minds, affecting their everyday
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Introduction by D.M. Hoare, Ph.D. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1960