Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Due Tuesday, October 15th - "Death of a Moth"
Overview and Directions: In preparation for our unit on Virginia Woolf, please read the following essays titled, "Death of a Moth," one by Virginia Woolf, the other by Annie Dillard. Please comment on these works in a comprehensive blog response. I warn you. These pieces require work from its audience. Be brave in your analysis. Take risks. I look forward to your responses.
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Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard provide very detailed and dramatic stories in which they describe the death of a moth. These stories are so intricate yet only take place within a fraction of minutes. I found it quite fascinating that she could describe every single detail and movement of the moth like when she writes, “Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body”. SHe describes the great hardships and agony that this moth has to go through to fly around the windowsill. Dillard also writes of “The wax rose in the moth’s body from her soaking abdomen to her thorax to the jagged hole where her head should be, and widened into flame”. The death of a single bug like a moth seems so simple and uneventful to us. Yet the authors of these short stories show us the true agony and suffering that all creatures go through when they are dying. I mean, imagine a person melting to death in hot wax. That seems absolutely horrifying but when a bug dies in a puddle of hot wax we don’t think about how they also go through a gruesome and dramatic death.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the authors are trying to tell us that things that may seem unimportant may actually be very huge and traumatic events for other people. We just see a random bug die but the moths feel immense pain as they try to grasp onto every second of life. We should notice other people’s struggles that may seem insignificant to us. It’s also so easy to downplay such kind of events and people might just think that you’re overreacting about this whole situation. They could say “calm down it's just a tiny bug that died” but in reality it's a living creature who as Dillard mentioned may not have laid her eggs yet or maybe had a very short life where they didn’t have the chance to experience the wonders of life itself. Any and every event shouldn't be overlooked because there is great detail in everything whether we chose to acknowledge it or not. I also wanted to acknowledge how both authors structure their stories. They begin by recalling everyday life in a broad perspective and then zoom into this very specific moment in time which emphasizes the importance of everyday happenings.
I believe “Death of a Moth,” by Annie Dillard highlights the beauty and darkness in death. While the images of the violent deaths of the moths may be grotesque they also produce a sense of beauty in the flames they are able to produce. The deaths of the moths are tragic but they allow the candle flames to burn brighter. Throughout the story Dillard continues to install upon her readers the idea that death is not internal nor an absolute ending, but rather the beginning of another story. Through death, beauty was produced.
ReplyDeleteIn “Death of a Moth” by Virginia Woolf, instead of analyzing her surroundings as did Dillard, she isolated herself and rather focused on where she wasn’t. Rather than seeing the beauty in the moths death and the light it provided, Woolf saw a loss of freedom the moth could never once again receive. Woolf saw the moth struggling to find the freedom it once had but failing to do so. The death of the moth meant the death of hope to Woolf. In both these pieces the authors review the same concept but provide different ideas and symbols for the situation. While one finds the beauty in the darkness, the other lets the darkness take a hold of what was once beauty.
- Lizaida Paulino
Virginia Woolf explores 2 central topics in her essay. She discusses the power of nature and the driving force of life. In her essay, the moth is symbolic for all living things. She claims that we are all powered by the same life force, and that we are all susceptible to death. For her point of view death is something that will always follow the living. Death never stops, and “fighting for your life” is only delaying death. For example, “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 of the window-pane” is made in reference to the life energy that drives us all. The essay also touches on a similar topic: how the moth’s actions inspire our own. While not speaking in a formal manner of cause and effect, Woolf shows how all living things do things for similar reasons. When she writes “nothing, I knew had any chance against death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself” she is showing how things fight to survive. However, she also shows how futile it is to attempt to resist death. And yet, the reader sympathizes with the moth’s attempts to survive, as we would do the same. This feeling of sympathy shows how we are all fuelled by the same energy, and how we all strive to stave off the impending death that we all, to and extent, fear.
ReplyDeleteAnnie Dillard takes a very different approach in her essay of the moth’s death, yet both had similar themes regarding the moth’s life force. Dillard put more of a focus on the surroundings of the moth, and how the moth’s death affects the world around it. Dillard’s essay reveals the purpose behind the existence of someone or something. For example, even as the moth is burned in the flame, it still becomes fuel for the candle. This shows how the moth’s death affects the world around it. Overall, I view Dillards “Death of the Moth” to be focused more on the physical effects of the moth’s death. To her, the moth’s life force can physically be fuel for the flame even after death, while Woolf shows how the moth’s life force is a more conceptual idea that, while not having any noticeable physical effect, is present in all living and nonliving things.
I believe that death of a moth by Virginia wolf shows how the struggle of life by both a moth and a human are both similar but they are also different in their perspective. It shows how they both struggle to survive and how humans fear death and have to work around it. I also like how both authors show the hardship comparison of a moth and human even though they are different. I like the imagery in both pieces in how even though humans may thunk that the death of a moth is simple they don't understand what the moth goes through when they end up dying and how they too hurt and feel pain and hardship that humans feel as well. I feel that the central theme is that even tough things may be small and unimportant to one but is actually important to someone else so it is important to count no one out. Any and every event shouldn't be overlooked because there is great detail in everything whether we chose to acknowledge it or not. I also wanted to acknowledge how both authors structure their stories. They begin by recalling everyday life in a broad perspective and then zoom into this very specific moment in time which emphasizes the importance of everyday happenings.
ReplyDeleteThere exists a certain energy to life. Beyond movement, there is something inherent about life, some thing precious, something worth saving. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is a very certain aspect about a deer, a wolf or a moth that makes them superiors to the dirt and rocks that lay on the ground of habitat. Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard seek to describe and quantify the energy of life with their short stories, “The Death of the Moth.”
ReplyDeleteA moth can be seemly insignificant, with their blundering movements and surprising fragility. However, such a creature provides a vessel in which to measure the force of death with. Virginia Woolf witnesses a moth in the process of dying, and how she “could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death (Woolf).” Death is final. There is nothing that can halt its progress. Even the scientists, as hard as they work and as much as they discover, will never stop death. A moth is just as feeble as any other person whose body is failing. The moth also seemed to struggle against death “when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep… (Woolf).” If a tree falls in a forest, does it really make a sound? Both viewpoints fall into the same channel, and Woolf questions why the moth should care to stay alive, if there is nothing else to do. If a moth has already bred, creating a new generation, what is the point of staying alive? Is the moth important to itself, or is it just a mindless collective of cells, living on instinct alone? Death however, isn’t always final in the physical sense. After its struggle, “he moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am (Woolf).” The moth certainly occupies Woolf’s attention, enough so that she took to pen and paper and recalled this story to life. In addition, the last sentence is obvious, anyone could surmise that. The idea of the sentence goes back to Woolf’s observations of the power of death, and seems almost laughable, for it is clear that a force that takes down cities would certainly take one a single moth.
Annie Dillard tells a story in which the death of a moth takes on a much more grand, much more energetic ending. When observing the collection of insect corpses within a spider’s web, Dillard can’t help but notice “the moths, the empty moths… like nothing resembling moths, so that I should hesitate to call them moths, except that I have had some experience with the figure Moth reduced to a nub” (Dillard). This begs the question: is a human body still a person? Dillard seems to think not, as the spider’s moths just hand there, the skeletons of life. When the moth catches on fire from he candle, it most certainly dies in the physical sense, where there no longer is the physical entity of a moth with the exoskeleton. Despite this, when the moth dies, “this moth essence, this spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick. She kept burning” (Dillard). The life force of a moth lived on, providing bursts of light, a more sensational show then that of the moth flapping around the room. What was contained within the moth, its life force, was a lot more than what appearances showed.
In Annie Dillard’s “Death of a Moth” she defines death as a celebration of life using the moth she witnessed as a metaphor. The moth, with large wings and a delicate grace, abruptly explodes in Dillard’s fire after being drawn too close. Dillard uses some pretty specific and unsettling imagery when describing the moth’s reaction to the flames, including how its legged coiled and disintegrated, as well as how its abdomen became glued to the sticky candle wax. While the descriptions she uses are rather brutal, one passage stood out to me, as it added some beauty to the moth’s gruesome burning. Dillard states, “She burned for two hours without changing, without bending or leaning—only glowing within, like a building fire glimpsed through silhouetted walls, like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God, while I read by her light, kindled, while Rimbaud in Paris burned out his brains in a thousand poems, while night pooled wetly at my feet.” It almost sounds peaceful, as if the moth’s burning, glowing body was a tribute to her life -- the burning colors of her wings more vibrant and beautiful than they had ever been. Dillard makes the moth’s death seem like a really wonderful thing to witness, and soothes any fear or anxiety the reader may have had regarding death and its uncertainty.
ReplyDeleteIn Virginia Woolf’s “Death of a Moth” she emphasizes the point that death has a hold on all of us, and will inevitably be our doom. Unlike Dillard, who focuses on the peculiar and fascinating details of a moth’s being, Woolf describes moths as stupid, curious little creatures that have been given but a grain of knowledge and abilities to survive on. While sitting in her home and observing the moths, she says “there was something marvellous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life.” Woolf, despite her lackluster descriptions of them, actually seems to admire moths, because they live very simple lives in comparison to us. She says they remind her of the true nature of life, which I guess is just to die? I don’t know, she’s wicked morbid. Anyway, she watches the moth die suddenly and I thought her description of its lifeless body was something really important to share. “Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” We never know when we will die, so its best that we appreciate the simplicity of every moment, no matter how terrible or dreadful the moment may seem.
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ReplyDeleteThe Death of the Moth and The Death of a Moth are two short stories written by Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard respectfully. Both of them have similarities in their titles, symbols - moths, topic - life and death, and consequences - the sublimation of life. However, the different tones and emotions convey their contrasting views of life. Woolf’s story shows life is a lonely, helpless, tenacious but vain struggle ending in vain with a predetermined and inevitable death, while Dillard's presents a active, vigorous, and glorious life terminated randomly in pursuit of dreams.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to their titles, both Woolf’s and Dillard’s stories have many similarities, especially their perception of life and death. In their eyes, all lives in the universe are precious but diminutive and fragile, and ended by inevitable death. They coincidentally express their views of life using the same symbol - moth, which is “little or nothing but life” (Woolf). In these two stories, both Woolf and Dillard utilize graphic descriptions to depict a moth dying, turning the death of this little thing into something so personal and momentous that the reader could not be unaffected. “A golden female moth, a biggish one with a two-inch wingspan, flapped into the fire, dropped her abdomen into the wet wax, stuck, flamed, frazzled......Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light” (Dillard). The moth “after a pause of exhaustion, the legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself” (Woolf). In the end, the fate of the moths turns out to be the same: death. However, they fight bravely against “an oncoming doom which could......have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings”(Woolf), keeping “burned for two hours without changing, without bending or leaning”(Dillard). Their death, a glorious and holy rebirth, turn them into “a pure bead” of life (Woolf) and “a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to god.”
While both of these stories use the same symbol of moth and explore the same topic of life and death, each author utilizes different tones and emotions to convey their different perspectives.
The moth in Woolf’s story is isolated in a small space and stays far away from a vibrant scene outside. “In spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far–off [the smoke] of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea,” it flies “to one corner of his compartment, and ...... flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do ......What he could do he did.” “When there was nobody to care or to know......insignificant little moth” wants “to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep,” but it “relaxed, and instantly grew stiff......The insignificant little creature now knew death.” Woolf’s moth is ignored by its surroundings and is incapable of making a connection or change with them. It has no company and no help, but it continues to struggle tenaciously in vain by itself and embrace death.
The moths in Dillard’s store is active and vigorous which reach every corners they could, do whatever they want, and sacrifice themselves in devotion to their ideals. They looked for new land in Dillard’s bathroom seeking for more living space and better life, died in the frighting with a large spider. They “massed round” Dillard’s head looking for the light in the darkness. They “singed their” wounded “wings and fell.” “Their hot wings” “stucked to the first thing the touched” only to be whipped away “by a quick flip with a stick.” They rush into the candle, “flapped into the fire......flamed,” turn into “a wick” adding a flame to the candle “while I read by her light.” Comparing to the moth in Woolf’s story, Dillard’s moths not only have free life and also have a bright, colorful and glorious endings. They “glided” the cooking stuff. The “moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light in the clearing and creating out of the darkness the sudden blue sleeves of my sweater, the green leaves of jewelweed by my side, the ragged red trunk of a pine.” Its “saffron-yellow flame that robed her to the ground like any immolating monk” who gets eternal life.
ReplyDeleteThere are undeniable similarities between The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf and The Death of a Moth by Annie Dillard. They have similar title, explore the same topic - life and death, and wish the lives would get eternity. However, their differences are obvious: Woolf’s views are pessimistic, taking life as meaningless procedure and death as the only way out; while Dillard’s perspectives are positive, depicting the process of life as an exciting but challenging journey and death as a colorful and glorious reborn to an eternal life. The comparison of the two stories with the similar topic inspire readers to go deeper into the eternal topic: life and death.
I thought that the essay, “The Death of a Moth”, by Virginia Woolf was about life and the struggle against death. It shows a moth, full of life, fluttering around happily and aimlessly. “The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous…(Woolf)”. The moth is faced with a predicament where death is a very real possibility, “One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom…(Woolf)”. This exposes the inevitability of death. It reminds us of the inescapable reality that we are powerless against death, comparing all walks of life to that tiny little moth, weak and frail. This essay should serve as a reminder to people to enjoy life while they can because death is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteThe other essay, “The Death of the Moth”, by Annie Dillard seemed a little more upbeat. While the story by Virginia Woolf dealt with the inescapability of death, this one seemed to put more emphasis on the circle of life. The story shows a moth flying into a fire, die, and then begin to fuel the fire. “And then this moth essence, this spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick(Dillard)”. This expresses a use for our body after we die, taking from the world and giving back to it when we’re done. I think that this essay is more positive than the first one because it acknowledges that death exists, but shows it as a necessary part of life.
Last year in AP Lang, our class read these two pieces, but they are still so difficult to understand, especially “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf. I interpret the moth in Woolf’s piece as being a metaphor for humans. As Woolf observes this “insignificant little moth,” she feels “pity for him” because he makes such “extraordinary efforts” to survive, even though he has no power against death. She creates this sense of complete helplessness in the face of death which I see as being a reminder to humans that we are not omnipotent like we tend to believe. As humans, we develop new technology, new weapons, and new medications to gain more control of the world, but Woolf says that no matter how powerful we become, “nothing . . . ha[s] any chance against death.” We are but “insignificant little moths” in comparison to the natural world.
ReplyDeleteIn AP Lang, we read Dillard’s piece during our 1984 unit and we focused particularly on the quote, “And then this moth essence, this spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick.” We saw this as an illustration of Winston submitting to the Party, after much resistance. When he finally surrenders to the authoritative, yet dangerous, Party, he is like a moth that becomes assimilated into the growing flame. It seems like he walks into the flame out of his own will, but the Party uses its dominating influence to pressure Winston until he has no other choice but to surrender. The most interesting thing to me is how Dillard tells the story of this single moment so mesmerizingly that I sometimes forget that all I am reading about is a moth burning to death.
I agree with you. No advancement could counter death. However, I think our technological advancement has granted us more control of something. For example, Virginia Woolf suffered from bipolar disorder and eventually committed suicide. Her illness had no cure at the time but there is medicine for it now.
DeleteBy studying the last dying moments of a moth, each author comments on the mortality of both insignificant lives like a moth’s or on their own. Even if the moth may die and succumb to the grasp of death, there is still the idea of immortality in another way, even continuity, after death and in a sort of afterlife. In Virginia Woolf’s piece, she discusses the former. Her moth has “something marvelous as well as pathetic about him”, and he is primitive in comparison to the world and to herself. She compares him to a machine, and yet, he wasn’t able to operate as one. He had a life just like she did and still was subject to death. Woolf “could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death.” Nothing was stronger than it, and in losing to it, the moth finds a loss of innocence. The “insignificant” creature fell, and “he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” As for the two situations that Dillard describes, they refer to two types of death: murder, or its natural equivalent, and suicide. The spider in her bathroom left shells of its prey, which were “hollow and empty of color, fragile, a breath away from brittle fluff.” Now, with nothing left of them, they are insignificant like the little moth, yet eternal in the fact that they will stay there. For the moth that she focuses on for more of the story, it encompasses hubris and reflects the story of Icarus, the Greek boy who escaped a labyrinth with wax wings only to fall into the ocean as his wings melted under the sun. This moth, having flown into the bright light of the candle, burns like a wick. She refused to die, as “her six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burned away, and her heaving mouth parts crackled like pistol fire. When it was all over, her head was, so far as I could determine, gone, gone the long way of her wings and legs.” In the end, her struggle meant nothing. It was irreversible, and “like a hollow saint, like a flamefaced virgin gone to God”, she burned for two hours. For those two hours, she remained a second wick until she was put out, and became a carcass. Both of these creatures in Dillard’s story find death in different ways, but they end up in the same situation. Each dies. There’s no way of coming back, but in that void of life, there is also something endless.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading these two essays, I couldn’t help but instantly connect the lives of the two different moths depicted to the world we live in today. In Virginia Woolf’s A Death of a Moth, the moth is described as being a “hybrid creatur[e]” in which it cannot be easily placed into one category. It is neither a butterfly nor like the typical moth that flies around at night. Instead, it is one that flies during the day which is unheard of for moths. This moth is unique and does not fit in with the rest of its kind. In a similar way, humans are all unique and different in their own way. It may not be as blatantly obvious as a moth who flies at a completely different time of day but it still shows. Every person has features that are special to themselves and each of these features serve as tools to create a world that is diverse and interesting instead of monochromatic and boring. Despite being different, the moth “seemed to be content with life” just as people in today’s society should be. Instead of focusing on the differences humans have and viewing them as negatives, we should we acknowledging and celebrating them. People focus on the imperfections of others and exploit them as a way to make themselves feel better for having their own. The words we say to one another act as the net, swatting at our victims as a way to capture them and make them feel small. Despite having a large world to escape to, the moth remains in the enclosed area surrounded by the danger of the net because “it is all he could do” and all he could see. When faced with adversity and fear, the moth just like humans, is incapable of seeing past what is right in front of them and focusing on the potential for the future. Instead, the moth focuses on the current danger resulting in being trapped both physically as well as mentally.The overarching image of the net starts to be the sole thought resulting in the moth’s loss of faith and the wings fluttering less and less. As soon as the moth stops and begins to doubt themself the threat around them eventually becomes too much and he becomes “so stiff or so awkward” that the only thing they could do is “flutter to the bottom” and eventually die. The moth accepts defeat and lets its predator win. When people become degraded, they feel as if they are insignificant and their backs are continuously up against the wall. The little words or comments or actions made by the people around us regarding our differences in a negative light, build up and eventually people begin to focus in on their feelings of hopelessness and craft the idea in their head that they are all alone and begin to give up and accept defeat just as the moth does, letting the hate win.
ReplyDeleteThough both stories are describing the death of a certain moth, Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard have different descriptions of the moth. To start, Woolf focuses more on the liveliness of the moth. She describes the moth as “little and nothing but life”. She characterizes the moth similar to how one would describe a little kid, “dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature of life.” Her descriptions add a joyful element to the story. Dillard takes a different approach when describing the moth in her story. Dark and morbid descriptions are used in her story. “They hissed and recoiled, lost upside down in the shadows among [her] cooking pans.” Dillard gives vivid descriptions of the slow death of the moth, burning in her candle and cooking utensils, which are a bit disturbing and contrasting with Woolf’s lively moth. Dillard’s moth is not struggling to live as much as Woolf’s, which takes away the liveliness of it. And since Dillard does not get into the moth’s battle for life, her story does not include the idea that death is stronger than one’s will to live. That central message tides Virginia Woolf’s story together and is not included in Annie Dillard’s story.
ReplyDeleteAnnie Dillard probably did not intend to have the same central message as Virginia Woolf. That is probably why she did not include similar descriptions. But when comparing the two, it seems as though Dillard is missing that portion of the story.
In "Death of a Moth" by Virginia Woolf, she pitied the moth for the majority of the work. She felt superior as a complex being and observed the moth's "futile attempts" to live its insignificant life to the fullest in the few minutes that it had, mentioning that "the helplessness of his attitude aroused [her]." Woolf thinks humanity is more drawn out and less lively overall. The moth represents a utopian attitude of humanity because it is able to flourish and it does not have to be subject to the prolonged nature of life that humans and other complex organisms have to deal with i.e. The less time you have, the less of a chance there is of bad events occurring. Dillard's work lay on the opposite end of the spectrum. She called the moth a "spectacular skeleton" and even used Christian and heavenly symbols, comparing the moth to "a hollow saint, like a flamefaced virgin gone to God."
ReplyDeleteIn Woolf's piece, she describes the moth "dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life." I pictured it as a happy sort of dance. Yes, it may be a dance with death because technically we begin to die the minute we are born, but I imagine the moth appreciating its existence and basking in its mortality until it finally does meet its end. The same principle applies to Dillard's story too, since the moth does not know that its candy, the candle flame, is actually poison until it is completely incinerated. It enjoys the heat and light of the flame like it is about to ascend to the heavens and then it eventually does.
These two pieces, each entitled, “The Death of a Moth”, are absolutely captivating pieces of art. Each seem to portray a fundamental truth: the contrast between life and death. By using the struggles of the small and often overlooked moth, they shed light on these terrifyingly omniscient aspects of the universe through a compact lens, making the process far more poignant and chilling. In Woolf’s piece, the story of the moth is told from the perspective of life. Beating relentlessly against the window panes, she describes the miniscule creature as a, “a tiny bead of pure life”, whose vain struggles appear as if somebody had, “set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life.” She shows this transport from the land of the living to the dead in all of its agony, but with a sense of dignity as well. After lying upon the ground for what seems like the last time, the bead stands up heroically one last time, only to die. In death, Woolf sees a piece of life exalted, for once the breath of life leaves the moth, she describes that he lies “most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” Dillard portrays life and death in a far darker tone. In her “The Death of a Moth”, she brutally describes the not so spontaneous combustion of the very same bead. She begins by calling dead bugs in a spider’s web “shiny” and “smooth”. During a camping trip, she watches as a moth flies into her candle. Instead of the terrifying yet content journey to death in Woolf’s piece, Dillard’s moth melts alive, for “her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burned away, and her heaving mouth parts crackled like pistol fire.” The brutal incineration portrays a stark contrast. This death is a twisting flame curled into a stranglehold; it is not quite as peaceful as a suffocating window on a pleasant, mid-September morning.
ReplyDeleteAs I read these two texts I was struck by the beauty with which both Dillard and Woolf described death. Woolf chooses to juxtapose life and death, beginning with a scene that portrays the ubiquity of life: “thousands” of birds soar high above a farm, which is in an of itself a symbol of human life and achievements in staving off death. Then Woolf attention turns from the grandeur of the great outdoors, of the mass of birds, the power of humanity to a tiny moth, a “helpless” moth. To me, this shift is quite poignant because wherein a literal sense it marks the start of a new idea, figuratively these two things are one and the same. The moth is not only symbolic of the universal struggle against death but it also embodies the fact that “nothing… had any chance against death”, not an entire world of life and certainly not a tiny moth. Woolf acknowledges this universal struggle when she notes that “the helplessness of [the moths] attitude roused me” she sympathizes with the moth for the unsurmountable procession of death is omnipotent and indiscriminate; no matter your size, no matter your power, death will always find you. Additionally, the way Woolf describes the moth an “insignificant” is interesting to me. I find it ironic that such a supposed “insignificant” creature can have such an impact on the mentality of Woolf and by proxy the reader. Finally, the last line is one that resonated with me. As Woolf narrates the final thoughts of the moth it, at first, seems obvious that the power of death is greater than a tiny moth, yet the thought that “death is stronger than I am” is one that very few people live by. Each and every day we tempt fate, hoping that we can avoid death’s grasp, not realizing that against the very smallest caress of death we would stand no chance.
ReplyDeleteConversely, there are Dillard’s views on death, that death is a spectacle, that there is life in death. To me, Dillard sounds much more Donne-esque. Whereas Woolf argues that Death is final Dillard proposes that In death there is, not life per-se, but a sort of meaning. In her “Death of a Moth” the moth goes out is a blaze of glory, and in doing so death is celebrated. Then in a macabre turn of events, the moth becomes an excellent light source to a writer trying to pump life back into her career. It is here that Dillard emphasizes her point; While the moth might not have a life of the living it has traded its life for a different sort of life. For Dillard, all that separates life and death is a pause, a momentary break in the inevitable cycle of life.
Both Dillard's and Woolf's works seemed to be developed around the theme of life and death. However, I found Woolf’s to be more meaningful because it follows the journey of the moth much more closely. Woolf uses quotes such as “One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death” to describe this struggle. And since there was only one moth throughout the story, it made me feel more compassionately toward it; I was a little sad when it finally died. Hillard, on the other hand, had multiple moths perish throughout her essay. They constantly fly into a candle and burn themselves. The imagery she uses is also rather grotesque. She describes a moth slowly burning to death and says “they singed their wings and fell, and their hot wings, as if
ReplyDeletemelted, stuck to the first thing they touched...in the morning I would find my cooking stuff gilded with torn flecks of moth wings”. Overall, it didn’t have the same emotional effect as Woolf's piece, and was a little disturbing to read.
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ReplyDeleteVirginia Woolf and Annie Dillard’s pieces titled Death of a Moth are both incredible works of art. The description in both is captivating, raw. Woolf’s piece, the original, focuses more of the human relativity of the scene, while Dillard takes a step further and relates the story to the specific importance of writing/writers in life.
ReplyDeleteWoolf’s piece is absolutely breathtaking. Through Woolf’s description, the reader can sense the fragility of the moth and its inner torment as it struggles to propel itself back into the air. I think one of the most powerful lines, or at least one of the lines most revealing to Woolf’s intended message, can be found in the second paragraph: “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 of the window-pane….What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.” This subtle indication of similarity between the moth and the rest of life in this September scene brings this idea to the reader that we are not all so different - humans have the same energy, the same fuel, the same chance at survival as the moth. We are not as unbreakable as we may seem.
Dillard, who is a teacher, focused a bit more on the role of writing in life, and how it enhances our living. “How many of you, I asked the people in my class, which of you want to give your lives and be writers? I was trembling from coffee, or cigarettes, or the closeness of faces all around me. (Is this what we live for? I thought; is this the only final beauty: the color of skin in any light, and living, human eyes?) All hands rose to the question. (You, Nick? Will you? Margaret? Randy? Why do I want them to mean it?) And then I tried to tell them what the choice must mean: you can’t be anything else. You must go at your life with a broadax . . . They had no idea what I was saying.” Dillard essentially writes here that the purpose of living is to write, to feel, to craft ideas and opinions, to share it all.
I think these two takes on the same kind of story (moth) work very well together, as one supports a more open ended theme of life and energy and the other focuses on those two topics through a more restricted view by examining life and energy and their relationship with writing.
Obvious notions include that other insignificant, "pathetic" beings, go through struggles and pitfalls of their lives on the same curve that humans have theirs. There is a lack of humanity by Woolf and Dillard in the fact that they accept that beings like moths are sentient and almost emotional beings, but feel no remorse as these moths fly into their flames or curl up and die. Woolf's essay addresses more the progression into discovering that moths might be something more than just pesky things that fly around our lights, as she watches a moth attempt to gain flight back and eventual croak; Dillard's talking more on the romanticized and anxious aspects of death, addressing the golden dripping body of the dead moth and her energy she felt after the death of this being. I can't say I don't have the same thoughts on the subject. Just the other night I was waiting for someone to answer me at my friend's door when a great moth fluttered by me. With precision, I swatted the moth away quickly with one swipe and it was no more. It made me think; why did I believe capital punishment was fitting for just bugging me? That was a living being, would I just kill somebody if they were annoying me (of course not, it's rhetorical)? It made me question the reason and animosity behind taking the life of a harmless being. Quite odd.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading about the most intricate descriptions of dying moths, or perhaps a dying anything, I gotta say that was quite something.
ReplyDeleteFor Viriginia Woolf’s moth death display, it felt mostly like death commentary, at the very least. The moth is pathetic and worthless. Nothing it does will ever mean anything to anyone, no matter how energetically it moves, because it’s just a stupid moth. This is presented as a great struggle from the perspective of the author, despite the fact that all 20 brain cells a moth has can’t even process the fact that it’s dying or even has consciousness. While normally I wouldn’t say something along the lines of why is so much effort going into such an insignificant event, because it just avoid analysis entirely, I think in this case that the pointlessness is the point. To a higher life form such as ourselves, the moth is just some worthless instinctual fool for use to muse at its struggles. We sit here and think on the last line, and ridicule the thought the moth can seem say anything, because as a moth it can’t seem anything, can’t store stimuli, can’t respond in a complex way. But how do we know the moth doesn’t have some primeval thoughts racing through its sparse neurons? We could be the moth, without even realizing it. We are afflicted by the same fundamental powerlessness in the face of death. Some higher undetectable life form could be turning our struggles, seemingly futile and pathetic in their eyes, into literary metaphors as we speak. We also do to ourselves what Virginia Woolf did to the moth, trying to find meaning from meaningless death to cope with the inevitability of it.
When it comes to Annie Dilards dying moths, her descriptions are a tad more morbid. However, her moth does something similar where it help her read and write, giving her fantastic imagery to work with as it dies, as well as literally lighting up the page on her book. After commenting on the moth burning to death in front of her, she starts rambling about how everyone else sees her rambling about being a writer. The moth is actually a metaphor for herself as she rambles herself to death while other people look for meaning in her struggles recorded. She is attracted to the light that takes her life from her. Writing, in a sense, has taken her life from her. It consumes her the way it consumed the moth.Our lives lead to our deaths as we burn out in a candlelight blaze of unimportance.
Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard use the literary strategy of imagery to achieve a message in their work. Virginia Woolf uses crafts a work around the common human emotion of selfishness and lack of empathy. She writes that, “I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure.” Despite this, Woolf uses the moth to explain to her readers to keep fighting. “when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one”. Woolf uses imagery and the character of a moth to achieve her purpose because it allows the reader to think deeply and more critically. Dillard uses the same type of imagery, but revolves her story around the idea of legacy. She writes, “How many of you, I asked the people in my class, which of you want to give your lives and be writers?” The death of the moth allowed for the narrator in Dillard’s story to contemplate their effect on the world and other people, and what about them will be remembered after they pass.
ReplyDeleteIn both compositions of Death of A Moth, by Annie Dillard and Virginia Woolf, they discuss the underlying position and angst they share with the idea of death and life. As stated, I felt that these pieces definitely “require work from the audience” to form a develop a meaning behind them, but once analyzing the experience both women had with both and the liveliness it once had, we were able to see their perspective on life and death.
ReplyDeleteOne quote that really stuck out to me was in Dillard’s writing, when talking about the actual death of the moth, “When it was all over, her head was, so far as I could determine, gone, gone the long way of her wings and legs. Had she been new, or old? Had she mated and laid her eggs, had she done her work?” this struck me as the panic of time. We are only given so much time to experience life, but we truly don’t realize it until death is closeby.
Virginia Woolf ends her narrative with stating, “O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” Which, I think, describes both stories very well. It shows Woolf coming to the conclusion of death having a much stronger power over her than she does over herself, just like with the moth. By coming to this conclusion, Woolf ends the writing on a lighter note of coming to the acceptance that it is inevitable.
ReplyDelete“The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard was a very grotesque description of a moths death. I feel like Dillard was conveying how short life really is and how we undermine its length as she writes “had she been new, or old? Had she mated and laid her eggs, had she done her work”.
She describes the moths death as an essential stage of life as she is fascinated by its burning body parts and how they made the candle burn brighter after its death as they “began to act as a wick”. As she describes this moths death, I realized how insignificant I consider an insects death to be as to me, they are just nuisances, but through this unfortunate event, one can recognize that even the most minute of things can have a great effect on a person even if it is just for a few seconds. Unlike Annie Dillard's illustration of a moth’s death, Virginia Woolf's story was more descriptive and straightforward as she uses the moth as a symbol for human beings. Through its death and the speaker not disturbing it, Woolf portrays death as inevitable as every living organism will be dead at one point or another. Considering this, Woolf conveys that people should live their life to the fullest and bring value to their time on Earth while they still have it.
The most powerful effect of observing a moth’s life through Dillard and Woolf’s perspectives is watching such a small form of life carry out it’s purpose, even if it doesn’t have great impact on the surrounding world. “The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic.” (Woolf) Woolf holds pity for the moth and its excitement for simple tasks. The moth does he not know of other possibilities and is completely satisfied in his own simple purpose that he doesn’t feel the need to explore. I have been told that I should learn to be content with what I have, because if we are always searching for the next thing to make us satisfied we never will be. Practicing gratitude and contentment in our lives allows us to be happy with what we have. However, if you are satisfied with what is given to you and are blind to possibilities how can you set goals and work toward them. Satisfaction of our routines creates a standstill in our lives where we feel safe in what we know and have already experienced. This safety of routine can prevent passion when working toward goals and creates a fear of experiencing new situations.
ReplyDeleteThe simplicity of the moth, “dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life.” (Woolf) We often feel as if we are lost in the complicated situations we experience, but looking at the monotonous life of the day moth we can see that our lives all follow the same simple path as the moth. Looking at the simplicity of life the moth has grounds us and allows us to see the power of simplicity in our own lives.
In both Woolf and Dillard’s “Death of a Moth” the authors reflect on the duality between death and dignity. To begin with, the authors portray the moth’s as weak and desperate in the face of death. In Woolf’s piece this is reflected by the moth’s struggle to take flight: “He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window-pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed.” And in Dillard’s piece it is even further emphasized by the description of the moth’s death itself: “At the same time her six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a sputtering noise; her antennae crisped and burned away, and her heaving mouth parts crackled like pistol fire.” This description is gritty, it is ugly, and it does not coddle and cushion the pure desperation and helplessness of the moth’s struggle. In effect the weakness of the moth is accentuated. However, despite the vulnerability and impotence of the moth’s both author’s synthesize an elegant juxtaposition. Woolf describes her moth as accepting its death in an almost gentlemanly matter, “The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” and Dillard’s moth becomes a symbol and embodiment of light and warmth, “And then this moth essence, this spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick. She kept burning.” These described shows of dignity against the face of death directly contrast with both author’s descriptions of the moth’s while they were alive. The previously portrayed figures of physical helplessness and weakness are now, in an almost martyr-like fashion, stronger than they were in life.
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