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Death Of The Moth Compare And Contrast

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Comparison and Contrast Essay
Virgina Woolf and Annie Dillard both wrote an essay entitled, “The Death of the Moth.” Woolf wrote her essay in 1942. During this time, she was a female writer struggling with mental illness and the constraints placed on her by society. In her essay, Woolf uses a moth to symbolize her own life. 32 years later, Dillard wrote her essay. In the time that she wrote her essay, she was a teacher wanting to inspire her students, and herself, to dedicate themselves to writing. In the essay, Dillard recounts a time when she had no motivation to write. She then has an experience with a moth, similar to Woolf. The most significant difference however, is that while Woolf sees herself in the moth, Dillard finds motivation in …show more content…

For Woolf, the moth symbolizes herself. She sees herself and her life in the moth. In the beginning of her essay, Woolf describes day moths as “hybrid creatures.” She herself feels as such because of the societal expectations for women in the 1900’s. Woolf expresses that she cannot be a true writer because she is not a man. Yet, that she cannot be a true woman because she does not want to live how women were expected to live. Also, in the last paragraph of her essay, Woolf describes the moth that she had been watching as an “insignificant little creature.” She believes that she is insignificant because she is not a man and therefore, not able to truly share her writing with others. In contrast, the moth in Dillard’s essay symbolizes inspiration for writing. In the middle section of her essay, Dillard recounts the moment a moth flew into her candle and caught fire. She describes how, when the moth caught fire, it lit up everything around her. She was able to see the vibrant colors of her surroundings. She was inspired by the death of this moth and it brought back her motivation to be a writer. Towards the end of her essay, Dillard describes how the moth that got caught in her candle began to act a second wick. The moth “burned for two hours without changing, without bending or leaning.” This inspired Dillard to continue writing because even though she had no motivation, she was able to find it through the strength of the moth. While both Woolf and Dillard center their essays around a moth, the moths signify very different things for both of

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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”.

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The Moth set out walking. It could only heave the golden wrinkly clumps where its wings should have been; it could only crawl down the school driveway on its six frail legs" (Dillard 3). Both Staples and Dillard are broken down by societies problems before they even have a chance for their wings to expand and grow so they can fly

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Female writers, Annie Dillard and Virginia Woolf, both had very different life experiences. Not only did they live on different continents but they were born in different centuries. Even so both of these authors had a similar and peculiar occurrence happen in both of their lives. The occurrence included an encounter with a dying moth leading them into deep reflective thought. Dillard and Woolf both wrote pieces on their thoughts and how the encounter influenced them in pieces titled “The Death of a Moth” and “The Death of the Moth” respectively.

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She does not use facts and logic like Petrunkevitch but, instead uses metaphors and an imagery to convey her message. “It seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world has been thrust in into his frail”, instead of simply describing what she saw like Petrunkevitch would have done, Woolf describes the deeper shiz of the moth’s actions. She does this to give the moth (metaphor for life) a sort of beauty then later saying, “the moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed”, to show the drastic change that death brought to the moth. Her metaphors help the reader understand and respect the power of death. Unlike Petrunkevitch who states and proves his thesis in his essay, Woolf never says her main idea but instead explores the idea of death through her essay.

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Then toward the end of the essay she uses words such as “helplessness” and “failure” (Woolf 42). By using this diction she correlates it with the path her ideas take, which lets the reader feel her attitude change. Though Woolf takes a neutral attitude to the subject, she still has a very serious and authorial voice to show the seriousness of the

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