Through the writing of the essay “The Death of the Moth”, English writer, Virginia Woolf, portrays an interesting scenario that has possibly been observed by many people. That being the appearance of a moth attempting to escape from a house through a closed window. However after viewing multiple failed attempts, the moth meets its demise and folds its legs in dead defeat. But is there a deeper message buried between the lines of this alluring piece of work? Yes, it’s a much deeper theme based on her state of depression she's trying to deal with, but in the end, like the moth, she is overcome and death wins again. Throughout the essay, Virginia Woolf attempts to reach her purpose of the deeper meaning behind “The Death of the Moth” by using multiple rhetorical devices such as analogies and vivid imagery, as well as symbolism.
In Woolf’s writing, you can find the use of analogies at multiple spots from beginning to end. One would be when she’s describing the moth that flies by day in the start of her essay and states that it is. “...neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species (1).” She uses this statement to try and establish that this moth is somewhere in the in between. It doesn’t portray a happy image as does the butterfly that flies by day with its vigourous colors, going around pollinating flowers. However it's neither
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You can see a good example of this when Woolf speaks of raising a pencil to “right up” and help the moth, but then it says in the essay, “But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.” In this you can see through the writing that the pencil symbolises the people that might have maybe made an attempt to help Woolf but then did not. Therefore leading to nobody helping her, even though she needs
The morbid, melancholic mood of the story sets the atmosphere for author’s observant yet sympathetic tone. Woolf also uses many literary devices throughout the story to expand the reader’s interest, such as her use of diction in line ? “Pathetic” and her use of imagery in line ? “hay-colored wings”. Woolf also uses description to portray the moth’s appearance throughout his efforts to live., using flowing adjectives throughout. The story as a whole uses symbolism to depict life and death in a different light, using the moth’s representation of life trying desperately to avoid death, but ends in the eventual fate of decease.
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
One of the most prominent rhetorical devices Virginia Woolf uses throughout both pieces is imagery. She uses imagery in order to make the ideas and situations become more personal. An even more important way she used imagery was to express the differenced throughout her experiences at both colleges. In the first passage with the men’s college, Woolf uses very descriptive and colorful imagery to describe her surroundings. Describing the “soles, sunk in a deep dish…spread on a counterpane of the whitest cream…” and the wineglasses “flushed yellow and flushed crimson,” the author shows the lavish style that those in the men’s college lived in. With her second piece, Woolf described the place as plain, describing the food as very normal and borin...
Edgar Allen Poe must have been one of the best writers of his time. He wrote amazing stories, but sometimes the ending keeps you guessing. His poem, Annabel Lee, was written about a girl whom he loved very deeply, but you wouldn’t think that some of the objects and people in his story were metaphors for things much bigger. Basically, almost everything is a metaphor for another in Poe’s writings. Sometimes people skip over some metaphors because they don’t think into it far enough. Looking into a story gives you another perspective on what’s being written. Poe used metaphors to make more of the love him and Annabel Lee shared. When you analyze the stanzas further, It is evident that some of the things he says doesn’t seem possible. Poe uses these metaphors and
Early in the essay, she describes herself living alone with her two cats, and she, somehow, makes joke with them although it was not so sure how often she did that in a day. There we can see that she is solitary, yet has some sense of humor lies in herself. Revealing her living environment, that would signal the reader about the upcoming adventure of her with the moths. Some may question why Dillard chose Moths instead of other interesting bugs like a caterpillar or flies to relate to human life. Plus, she does not only explain how the moths dies, but also provides a vivid detail of them dying so that the reader to
The moths help illustrate a sense of spirituality in this short story. Abuelita, the grandmother, uses old remedies which stem from a religious/spiritual nature to cure physical illnesses such as scarlet fever and other infirmities. Her granddaughter is very disrespectful and doubtful of the medicines which her grandmother used, but they always work. The granddaughter tells us that "Abuelita made a balm out of dried moth wings . . . [to] shape my hands back to size" (Viramontes 1239). In this way the granddaughter begins to accept the spiritual belief and hope.
In opposition to Woolf’s imagery, Dillard in her story “Living Like Weasels” describes a bright colorful summer evening. The picture is almost magic. Reader clearly can imagine himself/herself sitting there on the tree trunk next to the author staring at the lily pads “tremble and part dreamily over the thrusting path of a carp” (Dillard 1). By drawing this gorgeous picture, Dillard evokes pleasant feelings in the readers and gives them a believe that life is beautiful and fulfilled with
Woolf’s pathos to begin the story paints a picture in readers minds of what the
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
Some of the most disturbing truths are told in silent whispers masked in the noise of living. You aren 't aware that you heard the message until long after it has seeped into you subconscious and taken root in your psyche. This is an art in storytelling, an art so few can recognize, and even fewer can replicate. Such beautiful craftsmanship is Katherine Mansfield 's story of “The Fly,” in which, behind the scenes, a dismal message of grief and guilt and the limits of the human mind are told through two dying men and one dying fly.
Moth, for the most part, gets the better of his fellow characters, especially the educated ones. In the initial conversation between Moth and his boss, Armado, the page's first reply to Armado's question shows common sense. Moth responds that a "great sign" (1.2.3) of melancholy is sadness. This statement, too simple for Armado to understand, both mocks and uses rhetoric. Moth defines a sad face as a great sign, implying that the greatness of the sign lies in its obviousness. By claiming that something as common as a sad face is "great," Moth treats rhetoric like a joke by giving an overly simplistic answer to a difficult and eloquent question. But at the same time, Moth uses rhetoric by shifting the definitions of words to make his point. Because a sad face is so visible, it is great in its degree. Like any rhetorician, Moth h...
The fly can also be seen as an interruption in the narrator's process of dying. The fly can be heard buzzing above the "Stillness in the Room." The fly also comes between the speaker and the light in the last stanza of the poem, which is another disturbance in the speaker's dying process. The fly can also be seen in an ironic light. The speaker, like all of us, is expecting death to be an important, grandiose experience in our lives. Her own death, however, is interrupted by something as insignificant as a fly. The insignificant quality of the fly could represent the commonplace nature of death and the relative irrelevance of the death of one person. The fly is unimportant, an...
In her passage she imagines what it may have been like had William Shakespeare had a sister. She notices how difficult it would be even given the same talents as Shakespeare himself, to follow throughout and utilize them in her life. It is clear after reading further into Woolf's passage that obviously she lived in a different time period, only about fifty years apart though. The way she relates and tells a very similar story with an entirely different setting shows without the reader even knowing that she wa... ... middle of paper ... ...
Woolf, therefore, takes advantage of the lyrical short stories’ structure to create a liminal space that both breaks through barriers to form a unified, impressionistic world and to emphasize the imposing negative aspects of such a transitory structure. As a result, Woolf prompts the reader to question whether the liminal space created within the short story is positive in its ability to unite nature and human or negative in its apparent unsustainability. Regardless, the form and structure of the short story are pivotal in Kew Gardens. Without the liminal space of the short story, it is questionable if Woolf could have succeeded in creating the unstable, yet peaceful, world in Kew Gardens.