Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

757 Words2 Pages

Similar to a painter, Woolf illustrates the universal connection surrounding the struggle of inevitable death. From an outsider’s perspective, we might think that Wolff is watching a moths attempt at survival. Although, the meaning is more than just a moth dying rather Wolff’s perspective of the patheticness of life when compared to the great amount of power death has over everything it touches. From the rooks to the horses, deaths power can defeat anything in its way leading to the triumphant death of the moth. Virginia Woolf in The Death of the Moth paints a picture through the moth’s inevitable defeat, sketching the circle of life to illustrate deaths great power over everything it strokes.
To begin, Wolff describes the moth with detailed …show more content…

As the moth struggles to escape, getting closer and closer to its death Woolf begins to realize how death can’t be stopped nor shouldn’t be stopped; death has a plan for each individual making it a priority to let nature takes its intended path. Attempting to save the small moth through the aid of a pencil, Woolf realized that nothing had any chance against death. Woolf then accepted the fact that death must be taken with grace, anything in its way will be splattered with its great power. Tinting the passage with deaths uncertainty, laying out deaths plan for every living being, resembles that of a painter creating and drawing out his/her own perspective upon ideas and beliefs. Specifically, Woolf comes out and states the transparency death and life have as they resemble each other although in different aspects. Outside, where such life and precious beauty were held, met with the mortality of such a small creature nothing had changed other than the fact that a life had been taken from the Earth. The rooks went on with their day, the horses kept on moving not acknowledging any difference. In such an instant, the life of a creature was taken from the earth onto another path. There was nothing left, Woolf felt content with the fact that the moth was “relaxed, and instantly grew stiff” to show the end of a struggle against natures

Open Document