Woolf writes winningly, and, sometimes, confusing. At the beginning of an essay, Woolf concludes that the moth “seemed to be content with life.” It is hard to understand this statement while reading an essay for the first time. The moth has no future, and still, behaves carelessly. It accepts its destiny; therefore, it is content with it.
The whole essay consists of a contrast between life and death. In the second passage, the narrator claims that she has a “feeling of pity” for the moth, as “the possibilities of pleasure” seem to be enormous (Woolf). Such comments placed throughout the essay help to keep the mood.
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Although the essay is about the death of a moth, it also describes the difficulty of being an artist, who tries to create some completely new art that will last. The real life, however, is stronger than art: “Such vigour came rolling in from the fields (…) that it was difficult to keep the eyes (…) upon the book” (Woolf). Nature is more powerful than human creation here.
This essay describes an artist’s competition with life. On one hand, there are the rooks, the “smoke of houses”, and the “romantic voice” of a “steamer out at sea” (Woolf). On the other hand, there is the pencil of a writer, helpless in its attempt to save the moth. The insect is “a machine, that has stopped momentarily” (Woolf), and it obeys to nature only.
Woolf begins the essay by saying that “Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths,” because the general idea is that each creature has its own purpose and limits. The experience of reading this essay is actually an experience of accepting your own destiny without objections.
- Woolf, Virginia. “The Death of the Moth.” The Death of the Moth, and Other Essays, 2016. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chapter1.html Accessed 24 May 2017.
