Symbolism In Virginia Woolf's Death Of A Moth

In the short story, “The Moths”, the narrator, a fourteen year old girl, assumes the responsibility of taking care of her cancerous and dying Abuelita. Her Abuelita is the only person who understands the narrator and the only person she feels she can turn to. After having followed man’s rules for so many years, Abuelita passes away. All the moths that lived inside her are freed and the narrator learns some life lessons. Helena Maria Viramontes uses symbolism and setting to illustrate the oppression of women in “The Moths.”

Ted Kooser’s poem, “Surviving”, can be interpreted in many different ways. At first the poem seems to be about a man who is watching a bug being attentive to its surroundings and the bug having the fear of death. Another way to interpret this poem is that death is unrelenting. Even when the speaker seems to have ceased the image of death, it finds its way back. This is prevalent because the speaker starts talking about the fear of death, then altering the tone by describing this bug he witnesses. The speaker then leaves the reader uncertain at the end of the poem. Ted Kooser reveals the uncertainty of the bugs’ near future in the last line of the poem. A careful analysis of the poem, the poem is truly about a man in his final stages of life being attentive to death and the beauty of the bug he observes.

A trickiest aspect regarding growing up is considering death. It's something individuals truly don't like to think about, but thinking about mortality is pretty much an inevitable part of coming of age. Everybody does it at some point—you know because we're all going to die someday, as are our loved ones. You know the drill: Our grandma show us, cherish, then they get super old and die, and after that we slither into the bathtub with their corpses. It's just the circle of life. What's that? You've never taken a bath with a dead person? Well then you might be a little surprised by how things unfurl in Helena Maria Viramontes' 1985 short story "The Moths," a story about a youthful Latina girl who feels at odds with pretty much everybody in her family except her cherished Abuelita.

The movements and struggle of the moth affect each of the authors differently. Dillard describes the moth's death as if it were glorious: "She burned for two hours without changing, without swaying or kneeling — only glowing within, like a fire glimpsed through silhouetted walls, like a hallow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God, while I read by her light, kindled, while Rimbaud in Paris burnt out his brain in a thousand poems, while night pooled wetly at my feet." She sees the moths death as a stage of life that is as important as any other stage. In her death, the moth enlightens and inspires Dillard. The light by which she read about Rimbaud was magnified. In a sense the moth sacrificed herself for Dillard. Woolf, however, sees the moth in her essay in a much different light. The moth is perceived as a creature that is struggling for a freedom that it will never receive. Woolf describes him as "pathetic," saying that he is an example of the "true nature of

The lengthier sentences also help to explain the wonder and awe that Woolf expresses towards the moth. The wonder and awe that she expressed was due to the power and inevitability of the death. Woolf was in awe that death is inevitable and that she could not do anything about it.

The purpose of the plant's mention in the poem is to be the ironic stage for what is soon to occur. To complete the image, the speaker declares that this white spider on a white plant "hold[s] up a moth / [l]ike a white piece of rigid satin cloth" (2-3). White again, the moth also represents innocence, just as the spider and heal-all do. This model is ironic: an innocent spider on an innocent heal-all holds up an innocent dead moth. The simile in which the speaker describes the moth, "[l]ike a white piece of satin cloth" (3), refers to a piece of a torn wedding dress, symbolizing the vulnerability of things considered to be holy, such as holy matrimony. Frost designates the spider, heal-all, and moth as "[a]ssorted characters of death and blight" (4), suggesting that all three had a part in the moth's fatality. Ironically, Frost uses the word "blight" inferring the heal-all's backward influence, such as if aloe were to cause an infection. Frost again uses irony proclaiming that these characters are "[m]ixed ready to begin the morning right" (5), as though they are ‘part of a balanced breakfast,' a ritualistic practice which ensues good health. In this line, the poet implies that the death scene and others like it must occur in order for life to continue on each morning for particular creatures; this spider's breakfast is an occurrence of Darwinist natural selection. The poet then conveys this breakfast

Watching the hopeless death of the vulnerable moth leaves Woolf contemplating her own life, as she compares the moth to herself, and the human race. The moth, caught in a windowsill, is compared to the outside world by Woolf; while the moth flutters and exhibits life,

Annie Dillard’s piece “The Death of the Moth”, is about Dillard being reminded of the death of a moth she observes and how it relates to herself, this piece is a great depiction of the impact of life and death. Dillard describes her surroundings living in a rural area and within her bathroom is a spider which Dillard reminds of a moth that she killed in her past when she sees the web that the spider has spun and how it has caught many bugs including two moths. She is intrigued by the dead moth’s bodies and givings a vivid description of the bodies While describing the moth’s dead torn body she relates it to a personal experience from her past where she watched a moth die with candle two years ago. Dillard described the burning moth in vivid

Dillard also accomplishes to draw a strong parallel between herself and the symbol of this essay. As Dillard reads by candlelight, a “golden female Moth, a biggish one” flies into her candle, bringing itself to its own demise. Dillard closely analyzes this majestic Moth that has suddenly flapped itself to the center of her world. In paragraph five, after she has witnessed the Moth burn into bits and pieces, Dillard says “that candle had two wicks, two winding flames of identical light, side by side”. Dillard then begins to draw similarities between herself and the ill-fated moth. The moth was “golden” and “biggish” before she had flew into the fire, much like the writer that Dillard was like before she became a victim of writer's block. Dillard also draws a connection to religious figures in paragraph six, when she says “She burned... like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God.” A parallel that can be

Next, Woolf employs imagery in her writing to further develop the theme. Specifically, Wolf uses imagery to capture the moth’s final moments in life. Woolf adds descriptive phrases such as “stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom” and “he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings,” to encapsulate the moth’s initial difficulties of living. She creates a visual that enhances the moth’s struggle to survive; the moth continues to attempt to fly, but only meets difficulty. To expand on the idea that the moth is struggling, Woolf, herself in the essay, attempts to aid the moth’s in its dying struggle. She writes, “The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly.

The life of Edgar Allan Poe is not a tale of ease. Poe’s life was full of personal and fiscal disaster. These disasters help to mold some of the most ominous and intellectually challenging poetry ever written. For the short duration of Poe’s life, he was seen as a literary critic rather than an author. To the modern generation his unbeknown status seems bafflingly inconceivable, considering his now acclaimed publications. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing was very much dictated by his life. The mournful tone of Edgar Allan Poe’s life created his literature; death and all his friends narrated Poe’s life. Edgar Allan Poe shows his life’s constant despair through his poetry and short story writings.

On the contrary, Woolf’s moth died because it was natural. The moth fell down and struggled to get back up. She stated, that the moth “flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and after

The essay “The Death of The Moth” was published posthumously in 1942, a year after Virginia Woolf lost a battle with depression and mental illness, and at age 59 committed suicide. Virginia Woolf's "The Death of the Moth" shows the audience the power of death through a short narration about everyday, yet very symbolic moth. Woolf uses her own experience of watching a moth die to apply it to a larger theme. Woolf connects a simple moths lifespan to paint a gorgeous picture of “life” and then destroys it right in front of the audience's eyes, to leave a lasting impression of Woolf's perception of life and death. With further analysis and a more in depth look at its message, it is a essay filled with literary devices,

Danticat uses a considerable amount of symbols within her writing to dictate the suffering within. One example of such symbolism is Danticat’s implementation of butterflies. Danticat uses such symbolism to suggest the understanding of harsh realities. An example of this understanding is the female narrator and her theory behind butterflies. She believes they are able to send messages, both good and bad. An example of such is seen in the application of the black butterfly at the end of ‘Children of the Sea’. “…and then there it was, the black butterfly floating around us. I began to run and run so it wouldn’t land on me, but it had already carried its news.” (Danticat, 1996). Upon seeing the black butterfly and having it land on the female narrator, she comes to the realisation that the male narrator has died. Another application of symbolism in ‘Children of the Sea’ is the constant references to water within the story. Danticat uses the imagery of water to suggest the limitations of the characters’ worlds. Such allegory relates to

When one witnesses a death, he or she may ponder the weight of life and how one’s life turns to death. Some spend time lamenting the death, while others may use it as a catalyst to appreciate their own lives more. In his poem “The Death of a Toad”, Richard Wilbur paints a serious and somber description of the toad’s death, then crafts an elegiac yet still hopeful response to that death , in which he ponders the weight of the toad’s missing presence.