Virginia Woolf's Essay: The Death Of Moth
Kangbo Lu
Josh Coito
English 122
16 March 2016
Journal #7: “The Death of Moth” In Virginia Woolf’s essay “The Death of Moth” (1942), she implies that the power of death is over us. Woolf develops her ideas by juxtaposing the change of nature in a summer day before and after the death of a moth, and the dying process of the ordinary moth. By using those powerful imagery, the author contemplates the death of an ordinary life in order to provoke readers to reflect the powerfulness of the death. With emotional and reflective tone, Woolf probably depicts the death of the moth, and suggests the aftermath of death to her broad audiences, which are men and women, Begins with describing what moth is, Woolf uses imagery that appeals to reader’s physical sense to create more vivid description of moth. The author compares moth to butterfly that they are not “gay like butterflies” (1), and they are also not pleasant and colorful as other creatures. This helps author to explain the characteristic of moth, which is ordinary, plain, and not noteworthy. And this also foreshadowed the insignificance of the death of the moth that Woolf would be observing. …show more content…
Woolf writes that “It was a pleasant morning. [...] the plough was already scoring the field [...] vigor came rolling in from the fields” (2). This excerpt shows that the author creates happy tone with up-beat diction. However, after the death of the moth, the description of the nature changed drastically in her writing. She writes that people who “work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation” (6) and all animals had become still too in the field. This description of nature effectively contrasts the aftermath of the death of the moth with power imagery that appeals to
Josh Coito
English 122
16 March 2016
Journal #7: “The Death of Moth” In Virginia Woolf’s essay “The Death of Moth” (1942), she implies that the power of death is over us. Woolf develops her ideas by juxtaposing the change of nature in a summer day before and after the death of a moth, and the dying process of the ordinary moth. By using those powerful imagery, the author contemplates the death of an ordinary life in order to provoke readers to reflect the powerfulness of the death. With emotional and reflective tone, Woolf probably depicts the death of the moth, and suggests the aftermath of death to her broad audiences, which are men and women, Begins with describing what moth is, Woolf uses imagery that appeals to reader’s physical sense to create more vivid description of moth. The author compares moth to butterfly that they are not “gay like butterflies” (1), and they are also not pleasant and colorful as other creatures. This helps author to explain the characteristic of moth, which is ordinary, plain, and not noteworthy. And this also foreshadowed the insignificance of the death of the moth that Woolf would be observing. …show more content…
Woolf writes that “It was a pleasant morning. [...] the plough was already scoring the field [...] vigor came rolling in from the fields” (2). This excerpt shows that the author creates happy tone with up-beat diction. However, after the death of the moth, the description of the nature changed drastically in her writing. She writes that people who “work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation” (6) and all animals had become still too in the field. This description of nature effectively contrasts the aftermath of the death of the moth with power imagery that appeals to