Analysis Of Death Of The Moth

The beginning and end of the average human’s lifespan can be mirrored by the mere tick of the Earth’s second hand. Yet, life is not defined by the beginning or end of that second but rather how we choose to spend the fleeting milliseconds that pass by. It is this message that Virginia Woolf conveyed in her essay, The Death of the Moth, detailing the struggle of a moth against the inevitability of death. The moth’s earnest efforts to live in its last moments turns the meaning of life into a matter of choice: a choice between wholeheartedly living or passively surviving; a choice between taking control of your life or letting death take control of you. In the face of inevitable death, Woolf relayed the importance of this choice in an individual’s …show more content…
Beginning with observing the pure life apparent in the moth, the intricate sentence structure mimics the fluidity of the moth’s actions as the “same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean bare-backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his square windowpane” (Woolf). Within this sentence, multiple clauses, the events occurring in the background, are linked together to the subject of life energy and the moth. As a result, this connection forces the reader to acknowledge that, despite the vast differences, the moth and the reader contain that same energy that awards life. When Woolf shifts her attention back to the moth after realizing that its zigzagging signaled the moth’s distress from the approach of death, the essay transitions to observing the moth’s vain efforts to prevent its life from diminishing as Woolf recalls,”I laid the pencil down again. The legs agitated themselves once more.” Despite arriving at the climax, the short sentences create a calm tone and reveal Woolf’s acceptance to inevitable approach of death. Woolf’s use of long sentences, to describe her observations, and short sentences, to narrate her inner thoughts on those observations, ultimately guide the reader towards the overall …show more content…
In the descriptions of the world outside her window, the energy, the sense of being alive, and kinetic nature of the scene is captured through verbs: the plough “scoring the fields”, the rooks “soaring round the tree tops”, vigour and bountiful life “rolling in from the fields” (Woolf). Throughout the scene, the natural flow that relays the beauty in nature pushes forward an appreciation for life to the audience. Afterwards, Woolf skillfully transitioned from the energy found in nature to the same energy existent in the moth as,”it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his [the moth’s] frail diminutive body” (Woolf). In this sentence, Woolf stacked multiple layers of images through linking subordinate clauses to create the idea that the moth is a metaphor for life itself. Yet, the moth’s “frail diminutive body” highlights the moth’s insignificance; striking sympathy from the audience as the moth was not privileged with the same enormous possibilities that life held for