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The Death of the Moth, written by Virginia Woolf, explains the brief life of a moth corresponding with the true nature of life and death. In this essay, Woolf puts the moth in a role that represents life. Woolf makes comparisons of the life outside to the life of the moth. The theme is the mystery of death and the correspondence of the life of the moth with the true nature of life. The images created by Woolf are presented that appeal to the eye. For instance, the moths body during the death is appealing to the eye.
The image makes the reader more interested. The essence of true life is energy. As Woolf describes, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life (Woolf 427). The thread of vital light represents the energy.
Woolf employs several stylistic devices that make the essay more interesting to the reader. The changing in tone, lengthy sentence structure, and personification are three devices that are significant in the essay. Throughout the essay the tone changes by Woolf's attitude towards the moth. The actual change of tone is pity.
At first her focus is not totally on the moth and she is not exactly impressed with the moth as well. Then, as the essay continues, Woolf begins to be more interested and starts to feel a sense of pity or sympathy for the moth. As described here, Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin and pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body (426 - 427). This sentence shows Woolf's attitude starting to change towards the moth. In the beginning of the essay, Woolf does not show the interest like she does towards the end of the essay. When the moth starts to go through death the tone changes dramatically and Woolf is a state of wonder and awe for the moth.
When the moth is dying Woolf uses lengthier sentences to bring out the importance of the situation: One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death. (428) The lengthier sentences also help to explain the wonder and awe that Woolf expresses towards the moth. The wonder and awe that she expressed was due to the power and inevitability of the death. Woolf was in awe that death is inevitable and that she could not do anything about it. The next stylistic device is personification. By definition personification is to think of or represent as having human qualities or life. Woolf applies this device to the moth by giving the moth gender pronouns like he, him, and his.
As Woolf asserts, One could not help watching him. One was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him (426). Woolf brings on personal identification by using human words such as marvelous as well: Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvelous as well as pathetic about him. (427) Woolf represents the moth as having human life or qualities. The moth lived a life of energy and simplicity. Death, though, takes away everything. Death is the theme of the essay.
The three stylistic devices explained above all relate to each other and to the theme. The lengthier sentences bring out the change of tone as well as Woolf's inspiration toward the moth. The personification represents the moth as having human qualities. When the moth died everything stopped. For instance, there was stillness all around, the plough stopped, horses stood still, and workers stopped as well. The human qualities expressed by the author better explain the life and death of the moth.
Life is full of freedom or nature, and humans forget what life is all about. If this absence is recognized then death is easier to face.
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