How Does Woolf Use Personification In The Death Of A Moth

The Death of a Moth’s Allure Deconstructed

Virginia Woolf was not writing about the dead moth that had fluttered across her window pane Monday morning, mid-September when she wrote The Death of a Moth. Contrary to what many may believe, she wrote her short story to shed light on her unique take on suffering and death before her suicide. The Death of a Moth, by Virginia Woolf is a disheartening short story about how a pathetic moth finally found peace after losing the fight between its will to live and the all consuming forces death. After watching the moth from behind her window pane, Woolf comes to understand death as an inevitable fate and a solution to the suffering that one inflicts on themselves. She concludes that over circumspecting

She employs personification, the assignment of human traits to non-humans, to emphasize the applicability of her argument to all living organisms. Personification is used when “[the moth] seemed to say, death is stronger than I am” (Woolf). The ability to talk is given to the moth and encourages the reader to view the moth more as a human being. As a result, the reader forms a deeper connection to the moth’s life and regards the appearance of such circumstances of death and suffering in a human’s life very possible. Personification is also used when Woolf states ‘The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various … appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities”(Woolf). Undoubtedly, when the readers visualized how a man, instead of a moth, pathetically occupied himself with mundane work that day they generated deprecation. Without personification, readers wouldn’t be able to make a strong enough connection to the moth to feel the way Woolf wants them to. Hence, Woolf gives her work a bigger degree of relatability by closely associating the life of the moth to the lives of her audience. Additionally, Woolf leaves open the possibility of every living organism, humans included, to

Emphasis on the inevitability of death and the self-inflicted suffering can be seen when she shifts the entire tone of the story from inquisitive and pitiful to fatalistic and disheartening in the end. The beginning of the story when “[the moth is] driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in [her] own brain” (Woolf), is filled with the author’s feelings of attentiveness and curiosity. It then slowly shifts to pity as she emphasizes how the moth self-inflicted his own suffering like humans do. Suddenly, the epiphany, “a sudden realization that changes one’s perspective”, hit and “it flashed upon [her] that [the moth] was in difficulties … it came over [her] that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death … work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation” (Woolf). All tones of curiosity and pity were replaced with tones of disheartenment and fatalism as soon as the author overcomes her epiphany. Correspondingly, Woolf begins to describe the moth’s last struggles while repeating her refusal to help him to accentuate her argument that death was certain, all consuming, and impersonal. In conclusion, Virginia Woolf’s use of tone and epiphany drives her argument deep into the readers minds by drastically contrasting the beginning and end of the