Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard composed essays on the death of moths, expressing their nuanced
\nobservations and reflections on the destiny of the tiny creature. While both writers developed delicate lines
\non physical movements of moths, Dillard utilized significantly more metaphors and personification to make
\nhis essay more dramatic; Moreover, Woolf wrote in a serious and reflective tone arguing death is pathetic
\nyet inevitable, Dillard viewed the death as a small aspect of life that is interesting to write about.<\/p>\n
Woolf composed in a pathetic, serious but compromising tone, saying, \u201cO yes, he seemed to say, death is
\nstronger than I am\u201d. He acknowledges the moth\u2019s struggling as unbelievable yet still inferior to the power of
\ndeath. To demonstrate that, he frequently used juxtapositions of connotations associated with life and death
\nthroughout the work. While approaching the end, where the moth finally dies, the death words more often
\nappear in his essay, \u201chelplessness\u201d, \u201cstiff\u201d, \u201cdeath\u201d, etc. The ending made readers ponderous of how we,
\nhumans, should face our death. In contrast, Dillard remained as an objective observer viewing the engaging
\ndrama of burning moth. \u201cThat is why I think those hollow shred on the bathroom floor are moths\u201d. Dillard
\nwrote the essay as if he was acting as a detective on purpose figuring out what the \u201chollow shreds\u201d are on
\nthe floor. He did the keen observation of burning moths to gain evidence for inductive reasoning. It was like
\nwriting in a diary about an interesting event he successfully discovered in his day. Therefore, the tone was
\nquite easy and without deep philosophical considerations of death compared with Woolf\u2019s essay.<\/p>\n
The physical movements are well described, as Woolf goes, \u201c\u2026but (it) seemed either so stiff or so awkward
\nthat he could only flutter to the bottom of the windowpane\u201d. Woolf used quite a lot of words to directly
\ndescribe the movements of the moth, conveying the moth\u2019s action in a realistic way. It also aligns with his
\nserious tone. It depicted the gradual loss of energy of moth, creating a sense of tragedy. Nonetheless,
\nDillard wrote, \u201clike a hollow saint, like a flam-faced virgin gone to god\u201d. He dramatized and the Moth
\nburning for two hours without burning connecting with elements of Christianity and using personification.
\nFact that other creatures like his cat would never touch the candle and the mythical components make the
\ndeath more like a saint, a hero, who knows his destiny of death and accept to leave the world with justice
\nand self-actualization, which appealed to audience of sense of humor and make his \u201cdiary\u201d an anecdote with
\nredemption. Fantasizing moth as a hero, he aimed to find out interesting things in his life, eventually.<\/p>\n
-Quick Write by Charles Yang, Co-founder of Youth Torch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard composed essays on the death of moths, expressing their nuanced observations and reflections on the destiny of the tiny creature. While both writers developed delicate lines on physical movements of moths, Dillard utilized significantly more metaphors and personification to make his essay more dramatic; Moreover, Woolf wrote in a serious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11,15],"tags":[400,393,386,399],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-social-research","category-society","tag-critical-sharing","tag-quick-write","tag-research-essay","tag-the-death-of-the-moth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthtorch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}