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Similarities Between Annie Dillard And Virginia Woolf

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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. While having the same premise and similar titles, both of these pieces impacted the authors in very different ways which can be shown through their diction, tone, and structure. Dillard and Woolf are both facing hardships and deep rooted problems they are looking for answers for. Through Dillards diction it is revealed that she has trouble finding her purpose in life and dealing with the overwhelming hardships of being a writer. This is shown through her diction especially when describing the actual death of the moth. In one paragraph she graphically describes all aspects of the moth as it was dying with phrases such as “Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper” and “her six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly.” Dillard describes the scene in a way that the reader will understand her exact emotions and feelings while she was witnessing it. The next …show more content…

This accentuates the point that even after death everyone has

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