The battle against death, while can be portrayed as magnificent, is ultimately pathetic and insignificant. Like a boulder tipping precariously off a cliff, one can exhibit the ardent desire to survive, yet against the fragility and impermanence of life, this desire is a pitiful effort in the face of impending failure. The hopelessness of such a situation is depicted in “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf, in which the moth incessantly endeavors to overcome the irresolvable dilemma of breaking through the barriers that contain it and visit the outside world. Woolf argues that, because even the most extraordinary efforts cannot overpower fate, one is submerged in the chronic trap of life until the omnipotent death arrives. Through the vivacity and desire for survival the moth encompasses to escape the barriers that contain it and the creeping power of death that eventually overpowers its futile efforts, the escape from the entrapment of destiny is exemplified.
Woolf utilizes the moth’s vivacity(Used Frequently) and desire to escape the boundaries that contain it in order to reiterate the point that no matter one’s concentrated efforts, the trepidation and obstacles one attempts to vanquish can never be truly overcome. In the narration, Woolf observes the activities of a day moth, struggling to escape from the imprisonment of the room, and searching for a route within proximity of the window. The author admires the vivacity of the moth and its ardent desire(used frequently) to leave the chains that bind it, yet pities the moth as an insignificant and ignorant being. Woolf, by employing the imagery of the window and the world beyond to represent the obstacles one faces and the objectives one strives for, restates that no mat...
... middle of paper ...
...ed destiny, death.
The struggle for life is often seen as awkward and pathetic, such as the moth demonstrating its ardent desire for survival; through this narrow lens, death can be seen as an end to the chronic sufferings that life brings. However, rather than one force overpowering another as in “The Death of the Moth”, life and death are indeed simultaneous and complimentary components within the entire span of existence. They are not two isolated variables in which their sole interaction is that of death taking life, and life handing itself over to the dominant power; on the contrary, they are two variables that are dependent on one another for survival. Woolf fails to see that although all living beings die or are eventually eradicated, there are always a successors, and this constant balance is what perpetuates the subsistence of the cycle of life itself.
Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard are extremely gifted writers. Virginia Woolf in 1942 wrote an essay called The Death of the Moth. Annie Dillard later on in 1976 wrote an essay that was similar in the name called The Death of a Moth and even had similar context. The two authors wrote powerful texts expressing their perspectives on the topic of life and death. They both had similar techniques but used them to develop completely different views. Each of the two authors incorporate in their text a unique way of adding their personal experience in their essay as they describe a specific occasion, time, and memory of their lives. Woolf’s personal experience begins with “it was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Woolf, 1). Annie Dillard personal experience begins with “two summers ago, I was camping alone in the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” (Dillard, 1). Including personal experience allowed Virginia Woolf to give her own enjoyable, fulfilling and understandable perception of life and death. Likewise, Annie Dillard used the personal narrative to focus on life but specifically on the life of death. To explore the power of life and death Virginia Woolf uses literary tools such as metaphors and imagery, along with a specific style and structure of writing in a conversational way to create an emotional tone and connect with her reader the value of life, but ultimately accepting death through the relationship of a moth and a human. While Annie Dillard on the other hand uses the same exact literary tools along with a specific style and similar structure to create a completely different perspective on just death, expressing that death is how it comes. ...
By explaining in great detail about the flame and how the moth burned for two hours which gives the impression that day time shall never come. Dillard gets across to us the sudden flare of the moth as it first hits the flame, as if a “flame-faced virgin gone to god” as if it was a beautiful sight to see the moth burst up in flames.
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.
Edgar Allen Poe, in the short story “The Masque of the Red Death”, shows how people may try to outsmart death and surpass it, but in the end they will die since death is inevitable. He reveals this in the book by showing all the people closed up in the abbey that belongs to Prince Prospero. They are trying to escape the “Red Death” and think that they can escape the death by hiding away in the abbey. They manage to stay safe for six months but in the end they all die after the stroke of midnight during the masquerade ball Prince Prospero puts on from the Red Death itself which appears after midnight and leaves no survivors in the end. Poe develops the theme of how no one can escape death through the use of the point of view, the setting, and symbolism.
In his paper “The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality” Bernard Williams asserts his central claim that when immortality is feasible it is intolerable; further, it is reasonable to regard death as an evil. He argues his position by utilization of The Makropulos case, or the case of E.M. This character and circumstance is derived from a play by Karel Capek. E.M. is a woman of three hundred and forty two years. She has survived so long due to an immortality draught concocted by her father, a physician, long before the play’s action. E.M. explains her problem with immortality is that her unending life has become incredibly dull, her emotions have become cold and indifferent. She feels that in the end, everything has happened before and life has become unsatisfying. She stops taking the immortality draught and death overtakes her. This invokes the optimistic thought that immortality may be rewarding, if certain desires continue to be satisfied. Williams expands on the idea of these desires, called categorical desires and inherent motivation, but first we should confirm the views of death that make the conversation of immortality desirable.
Through many writers’ works the correlation of mortality and love of life is strongly enforced. This connection is one that is easy to illustrate and easy to grasp because it is experienced by humans daily. For instance, when a loved one passes away, even though there is time for mourning, there is also an immediate appreciation for one’s life merely because they are living. In turn, the correspondence of mortality and a stronger love for life is also evident in every day life when things get hard and then one is confronted by some one else whom has an even bigger problem, then making the original problem seem minute. This is seen as making the bad look worse so then the bad looks good and the good looks even better. The connection of mortality and one’s love for life is seen in both T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and Yulisa Amadu Maddy’s No Past No Present No Future.
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...
For those who dare take such a risk, they could be met with, “an eternal boon of privacy” or the, “silver reaches of the estuary”, possibly signifying a silver lining at the end of the tunnel. With two contrasting outcomes to a singular situation, the author, Avison, continually pushes the fact that these risks are dangerous, which is exactly only why, “one or two have won” this so called game of a whirlpool. Avision also adds that when a risk-taker becomes defeated by the whirlpool, they, “turn away from their defeat” and most likely become the people who sit, “on the rim of suction” afraid to make another mistake or face the consequences of another uncalculated or miscalculated risk. The, “despair” that people feel as a result of a failure is simply a consequence of enduring the whirlpool, with the “death” described signifying the death of their wonder at what is past the whirlpool in the silver estuary. The second stanza serves to Avison as a continuation of first stanza ideals, with the addition of consequences or benefits of the
In John Gardner's novel, Grendel, the protagonist himself, Grendel the monster, loses sight of that joy in life when he forgets that it is the life itself for which he is living, not some outside force which governs his actions. In this slip, he dooms himself to a living death of machine-like actions culminating in his physical de...
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.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” (“The Raven” 1). “The Raven” arguably one of the most famous poems by Edgar Allan Poe, is a narrative about a depressed man longing for his lost love. Confronted by a talking raven, the man slowly loses his sanity. “The Haunted Palace” a ballad by Poe is a brilliant and skillfully crafted metaphor that compares a palace to a human skull and mind. A palace of opulence slowly turns into a dilapidated ruin. This deterioration is symbolic of insanity and death. In true Poe style, both “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” are of the gothic/dark romanticism genre. These poems highlight sadness, death, and loss. As to be expected, an analysis of the poems reveals differences and parallels. An example of this is Poe’s use of poetic devices within each poem. Although different in structure, setting, and symbolism these two poems show striking similarities in tone and theme.
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. His father died of tuberculosis when he was eleven years old and because of that he moved with his mother and younger sister to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He later attended Lawrence High School, where he met his love and future wife, Elinor Miriam White. High school was where he first became interested in reading and writing poetry. After graduating in 1892, he attended Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire for a few months, until he returned home to work various unfulfilling jobs for several years. His first published poem, “My Butterfly,” appeared in The Independent, a weekly literary journal based in New York on November 8, 1894. He proposed and got married to Elinor White
Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf is famous absurd play written by Edward Albee. It was first performed on ocatobar in New York and it won the New York drama critics Circle award and the Tony Award for the season 1962-63 season. In American society it bought the major shakeup which was yet to be seen in the future. In the late 1960s economically as well as socially America was being homogenized through cold war, planned suburbs and fast food culture. Different voices like Albee came to the world in the late 1960s.
Throughout time, death has been viewed in a negative light. In general, it is an event to be mourned and is seen by some as the end to existence. People do not usually seek death as an answer to their problems. In various pieces of literature, however, suicide is contemplated by the characters as the only solution to the pain and grief that they experience.
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.