Comparing Death Of A Moth By Virginia Woolf And Annie Dillard

Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard both wrote marvelous essays about a moth. Virginia Woolf’s essay was titled “Death of A Moth,” and Annie Dillard was titled the “Death of the Moth”. The main similarity between these two essays is in the naming of their essays but after that they are very different. Both Dillard and Woolf wrote extensive and detailed essays leading to the death of a moth but from a very different perspective. Each author has very different writing styles and tones. Dillard utilizes more blunt, and often graphic description in her writing, contrasting with Woolf’s reverent and solemn writing. Dilliard also kept notes in a journal in order to "accumulate" life and make later writing easier. Dilliard, believes that as a

Whereas, Virginia Woolf, however, seems to perceive life as pointless, meaningless, and reveals that life’s struggle with death is inevitable. Woolf personifies the moth by describing the moth as “him” versus “it” in order to showcase the aspect of life of all living things and not just the moth. Wolfe describes the life of a moth flying across a window seal then the second time the moth seemed either “so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the windowpane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed”. She then describes watching the moth’s futile attempts to fly across the window only to stop momentarily then to “start again without considering the reason of its failure”. She describes the moth’s life as pathetic. Dillard also personifies the moth like Woolf did by relating to the moth as empty and hollow as life can sometimes be. She is very detailed in describing the moth’s dorsal curve of thorax and abdomen, and a smooth pair of cerci. Then she describes how moths like to fly around candles then catch on fire with a resultant hiss and recoil, than they get “lost upside down in the shadows among my cook pans”. She details how moths singe their wings and fall. Then they touch a pan, a lid, a spoon until their hot wings melt and stick to the first thing they contact. They are unable to struggle