Change In The Moth's Life example essay topic

462 words
The moth is a little part of life but is a big part of Virginia's life. A moth might just be a little creature flying around in a window-pane to you but to Virginia, it symbolically represents her life. In the essay " The Death of The Moth", by Virginia Woolf she symbolically represents how this moth she is watching resembles herself. The moth in the beginning is very energetic and seems pleasured by just flying around in the window.

As the time goes on, as she sits and watches the hay-colored moth, it seems to get tired. "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". As more time passed on the moth shows less of a sign of life. It seems everything disappeared from its life and it had no reason to live. In the start of this essay the moth is very lively and when he is like this the outside or the rest of the world is lively as well.

The day was described as pleasant, mild and benignant. The ploughs were scoring the fields and the rooks were soaring around the tree tops. Then when he is dying and eventually dead the rest of the world is also in a state of deadness. "Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation". the horses stood still and the birds had left to go feed in the brooks.

This is all symbolic for the author's life. At one time in her life she had fun, was happy and was always around people doing things being noticed. Which links to the activity going on outside in the beginning of the essay and her noticing the moth. Then as her life goes on it becomes dull and lonely. Which is what happened to the moth it goes from a state of bliss to death, and from this change in the moth's life, the life around it also starts to slow down. So as she got older her life became useless and the people around her seemed to no longer be involved in her life, bringing her to her suicidal death.

So in the end she is comparing herself to the moth in which the life around both of them was both dull and lifeless and that's why Virginia and the moth both came across their own deaths. Her life was strange before her death along with the moth, "Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.".