Preview

Analysis Of The Death Of A Moth By Virginia Woolf

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
635 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of The Death Of A Moth By Virginia Woolf
In “The Death of a Moth” written by Virginia Woolf in 1942, she correlates the life of a moth to the simplicity “true nature of life” and death. Moths are content with life while they do their duties as humans are, while putting up a fight. A large process of life of suffering and attempting to survive in this large process. Woolf claims that we, like moths, have such a simple and marvelous purpose in this world. We can do so much with the amount of energy we have but, we only do what we have to do and humans like moths also seem so content whilst doing their duties continuously. But we always are ready to fight when we have to. The sentence structure supports this claim when Virginia Woolf says “the possibilities of pleasure
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Lord Of The Flies: A Literary Analysis
    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Lord Of The Flies: A Literary Analysis

    "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."-Mahatma Gandhi. Everything man needs is right in front of them, but human nature drives them to be evil. Savagery and civilization is what the humans conscience battles. William Golding addresses this argument in the novel, Lord of the Flies, through an island of lost boys. They are strive to live civilized however, the evil inside begins to seep out, transforming them into savage hunters.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    In the Time of the Butterflies Chapters 5-8 Summary and Analysis
    • 5273 Words
    • 22 Pages

    In the Time of the Butterflies Chapters 5-8 Summary and Analysis

    Back in the present (1994), Dede considers how Fela, their longtime servant, thinks that she is possessed by the spirits of the dead Mirabal sisters. She had accidentally come across Fela's shrine to the girls one Friday in the shed behind the house. She had ordered Fela to move the shrine, but Minou scolded her for being intolerant. Minou often stops at the shrine, which is now down the street. She asks Dede where Lio Morales now lives, since Minerva has asked her to deliver a message to him—just to say hello, and to state how much she thinks of him. When the interview woman presses on, asking Dede, "When did all the problems start?" Dede begins to speak about Lio Morales. She met him one "hot and humid afternoon" while she was organizing her father's shop with Minerva. They are finishing up before they head to Tio Pepe's to play volleyball with their friends. Dede knows that her cousin Jaimito, on whom she has started to have a crush (even though he once annoyed her), will be there. Mario, one of their distributors, arrives with Lio, and introduces him as his cousin. He knows Elsa Sanchez and Sinita Perozo from the university. When Dede mentions that they are committed to playing volleyball, Minerva invites Mario and Lio. Minerva gets their father's permission, and the girls go to Tio Pepe's with Mario and Lio.A few weeks later, Lio is still joining them for volleyball. Jaimito suggests that the girls come to play. As they take off their shoes and begin to assign positions, Dede notices that Minerva and Lio are missing. She is unsure if it is actually an accident, but she hits the ball into the hedges, startling the hiding couple. Once Lio emerges from the hedges, Jaimito starts a fight with him, and the game ends in awkwardness. Lio and Jaimito both begin to come to the Mirabals house more and more. When Maria Teresa accidentally reads aloud to Mama a newspaper article that reveals that Lio is "a…

    • 5273 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Holy The Firm By Annie Dillard Analysis
    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Holy The Firm By Annie Dillard Analysis

    “Death of a Moth” is a short essay from the author, Annie Dillard, called Holy the Firm, and also one of her most personal essay that she’s ever written. It is about the burning moths, her belief in God, and acceptance of her faith to being a writer. She uses the death of the moths to tell us nature’s cycle of life. Everything is the same, human and animal, life and death. In the end, they will all end up like the moth being burned up by candle light.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Analysis of The Moths by Helena Viramontes
    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Theme Analysis of The Moths by Helena Viramontes

    When one is internally consumed by resentment, they become isolated and it takes an extreme event such as a great loss to regain inner peace. A young teen in the story “The Moths” is the outcast in her family. She isn’t girly or dainty like the rest of her sisters. The narrator almost always feels alone, even at church. The only person that can make her feel safe is her grandmother.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Lord Of The Flies Literary Analysis
    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Lord Of The Flies Literary Analysis

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel, where a group of young British boys are lost on an island after their plane crash lands. Throughout the novel William Golding utilization of literary devices are in place to reveal a theme of the novel, civilization and innocent are destroyed due to the savagery of the boys', desire for power, and fear of the unknown. William Golding utilizes three important literary devices throughout the novel, symbolism, of when the conch is destroyed civilization on the island is gone, foreshadowing the deaths of the boys on the island and irony as the civilize British boys turn savages.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Lord Of The Flies Critical Analysis
    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Lord Of The Flies Critical Analysis

    The central theme of the Lord of the Flies is the influence of others. Each boy had to pick between a set of rules and morals to live by, dividing them into two groups. The conflict consisted of Civilization versus savagery. In one group the influence of Ralph was a sense of order and everyone lived by rules. The influence of good beliefs and values generated these boys from committing sinful crimes. In Jacks group, the boys were influenced by evil. The killing of animals empowered them to become sinful people. Jack would measure value in the group by ones immediate desire to kill coldblooded. To obtain authority you needed to act violently. These acts shaped how the boy’s mental state developed. Damaging the human they will grow up to be.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth
    • 151 Words
    • 1 Page

    Virginia Woolf's The Death Of The Moth

    In the essay "The Death of the Moth" Virginia Woolf shows us a traditional battle between life and death. I think that all of us are moths at some points in our lives. We do something without thinking and results. The life is a journey towards death. That's why we should stop sometimes and think. Or everything will go through us and will finish nowhere. I think that this is a symbolism in Virginia Woolf's story about the moth.…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Virginia Wood Death Of A Moth Analysis
    • 136 Words
    • 1 Page

    Virginia Wood Death Of A Moth Analysis

    In the death of a moth essay, Virginia wood uses the moth to symbolize to us humans and life in it. The message is once the symbolism of the moth is understood it quite clear. In the essay the moth flies from side to side on the window pane and it seemed that the moth was unaware of its movements. At first she doesn't care much about the moth, but later on she starts to feel sympathy for the moth as it lay on its back trying to get back up. She tried helping the Moth but then it dies in its position. She states '' Just as life had been strange a few minutes before. So death was now strange. '' This shows that she believes that life, even death, is recognized by us…

    • 136 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    The Mothman Phenomena
    • 2245 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The Mothman Phenomena

    "MOTHMAN!" AMERICAN HAUNTINGS: WHERE DEAD MEN STILL TELL TALES. 2001. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. <http://www.prairieghosts.com/moth.html>.…

    • 2245 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    In the Time of the Butterflies Essay
    • 1242 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the Time of the Butterflies Essay

    “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” (Andre Gide) In the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, four sisters are led through a risk infested journey in which they must overcome hindrances with hollow consequences. This historical fiction novel takes us through a rollercoaster of events, incorporating everything from the partialities towards women, to life below the oppressive administration of the Dominican Republic’s dictator, Rafael Trujillo. The events painted by the four sisters give us some insight as to the positives and negatives of life in the Dominican Republic. As the novel progresses, we see the diversity in relation to the sisters’ personalities, each of whom is fueled by a different cause. Julia Alvarez uses reproving diction in the quote, “His own terror was a window that opened onto the rotten weakness at the heart of Trujillo’s system…” (Alvarez 278) to exemplify the major theme of authoritarianism; and specifically through the three phrases, “terror”, “weakness,” and “rotten system,” we are able to visualize Trujillo’s iniquitous use of fear, his exploitation of power, and the major flaws in his system, respectively, which all can be tied back to the principal theme of authoritarianism.…

    • 1242 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Death Of The Moth Analysis
    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Death Of The Moth Analysis

    In the essay “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf and “The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard, the two authors use the image of a moth to find out about their places in life. Instead of choosing any other animals, they use the death of the moth to describe death as an inevitable part of life. However, each author approaches and describes the death of the moth with different feeling. Woolf describes the moth in a calm peaceful setting where energy only rest in the little moth. This will further worsen the event as the death of the moth approaches closely as the energy starts to disappear and put everything back to quiet. On the other hand, Dillard first saw the moth when she came to the urban area to get inspired to write again. She found…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Totem Pole Project
    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Totem Pole Project

    When I think of butterflies, I think of how beautiful and lovely they are. Although, sometimes I forget that they were once little caterpillars. Butterflies pass through a very challenging metamorphosis before they become these enchanting precious creatures. Just as a chrysalis can turn into divine butterfly, I too can reach all my goals in life. All the hard work I put into life will make me succeed, as all the hardships little caterpillars go through will make them into beautiful butterflies. I look up to butterflies because they work so hard to reach their goal. This is how butterflies represent my life.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Ap English Literature Extended Response
    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Ap English Literature Extended Response

    This piece is formulated through an allegory which exists on both a literal and figurative level. Virginia Woolf relates the struggles that a moth, which is so vulnerable to death to the everyday life of the human struggle. Implicitly, Woolf describes the moth to have value like individuals as they try to put a stop to death in the same sense like humans do.…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    COMPARING MOTH AND CAVE
    • 550 Words
    • 2 Pages

    COMPARING MOTH AND CAVE

    Virginia Woolf describes a certain specimen of moth and how its simply ok with its simplicity and then goes on to describe the present day that the writer is living in. She grabs the readers interest and sets the tone for the remainder of the story. “Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay-colored wings, fringed with a tassel of the same color, seemed to be content with life. It was a pleasant morning,…

    • 550 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Broyard's Essay 'Intoxicated By My Illness'
    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Broyard's Essay 'Intoxicated By My Illness'

    Why is the “truth” so effective, or astonishing, on Broyard’s intoxicated state of his impending death? These questions can be answered by Virginia Woolf’s essay, “The Death of The Moth.” In the essay, Woolf is distracted by a moth that “[flutters] from side to side of his square of the window pane.” (105) Feeling compassionate for the “pathetic” creature, Woolf faces a dilemma on whether she should help the moth or not. (105) Eventually, she decides that she should not interfere the moth’s “dance,” or his its struggle in the face of death. (106) Unsurprisingly, the moth dies, earning the respect from Woolf. Woolf observes the moth as a symbol of life, exuding an aura of “vigor” and “zest”. (105) The entire essay depicts a cruel battle between life- the moth- and death, and ends with life succumbing to death. Woolf understands the omnipotent strength death possesses; she is cognizant of the fact that life is helplessness in front of…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics