In class today, we talked about the significance of your story or the "why." What is Virginia Woolf's "why" in her experience? Is there more than one "significance" to her story, and how does her story affect you as a reader AND as a writer? Respond to her story answering these questions, pointing out what you think she does or does not do well, and tell me the part of the story that stands out to you the most.
I'm expecting 250-300 words, paragraph form. Due by class time on Thurs.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
Mrs. Elmer
Adam Prouty
ReplyDeleteI think virginia's why in her story was about death. She saw a reflection of death in the moth's life that she related to her own life. She expressed at one point how she wondered at the site of the death. She was just marling at the thought of death and how it could take over so much life, so much energy with no effort at all. Its like she was personifying death, giving it attributes like a person. The underlying significance is death but throughout the whole story there is another kind of significance. Life. Even though the story ends with death, it begins with life. Crazy, sporadic, energetic. All those words came to mind when she was describing the moth and how it fluttered so furiously from side to side. She was thinking about several different things looking out the window to see everything that goes on in the morning. But the moth only thought about one thing. Life and death are complete opposites but she relates them. How death can overtake such energetic life. The moth gave so much effort and and devotion to staying alive but eventually succumbed to death. The story made me think about my efforts. It made me think "do i give one hundred and ten percent all the time knowing in the end its futile?" such a short story but so much to think about.
The author Virginia Woolf writes a story of a moth and how it is so full of life then suddenly it dies. This story about a sudden death is foreshadowing the suicide of the author herself. She writes a story of such and insignificant and colorless creature, which symbolizes her feelings of her own life as being insignificant and life-less. This story definitely affects me as both a reader and a writer. As a reader, she makes you feel sympathy for something so small and unimportant, but as a writer she challenges me to write about something so minor and make it relate to my life in a large way without giving all the answers to the reader straight forward. I want to make the reader of my writings have to read and think about what my writings are meaning to me. The line “Oh yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am” stood out to me the most because the wrote is as if the moth was saying it but really it seemed as if she was trying to tell the world that death was stronger her and that she was about to commit suicide.
ReplyDeleteAlex Reaves
I feel like sometimes how a story affects someone is something that is ineffable. After reading “The death of a moth” its not like a then changed my life, gave all my savings to charity and ran away to Alaska, but like every story i felt “incepted” at the end of it. As if Virginia planted a tiny little idea that itches my brain until I can’t help but scratch it. It is an idea that is hard to put to words. Death is somewhat of the best writer humanity has ever seen. It is the other side of the book. While life is the bulk of the pages the only reason you are reading the story is too understand the end. So it is just as much a part of life as life is.
ReplyDeleteVirginia Woolf committed suicide shortly after writing this story. That significantly changes how one reads and understands this story. The story has nothing to do with life at all, she doesn't view it as something good nor bad she views it as strange. Woolf is more infatuated by the idea of death, then teenage girls are about vampires. The story is not about life, it is about a moth dying, and her understanding, maybe if only for a second what death is; much like the feeling right after one wakes up and remembers dreaming but can't recall the dream. She only gets a glimpse of death, but she begins to understand the poetic beauty behind it. The 'why' in this story is to try and understand death; something that she feels like is impossible. this is Virginia Woolf's unofficial suicide note; as if she said "oh yes, death is stronger than i am".
Ozymandias
Grant Gilmour
ReplyDeleteThe author Virginia Woolf is writing about a moth that she sees on her window seal. At first, the moth is full of life and then it suddenly dies. Virginia Woolf's "why" is her life is defined in this short sequence of events. She foreshadows her own future because she eventually drowns herself in a river. There is more than one "significance" in this short story. The story mainly talks about death but it also talks about life. The story effects me as a reader because you fell compassion for a tiny creature that is helpless and as a writer she amazed me how she could so vividly describe a small moment in her life. The story mainly talks about death but it also talks about life. She watches as the moth struggles to survive and she tries to help it but she realizes that her attempts will not be able to help it survive. Virginia Woolf probably did not realize that she could not overcome death just like the moth.
Woolf's "why" is definitely death. However, I think that there is a significance beyond death. I believe that this essay is much more depressing than what is shown at face value. She describes the life of the moth using words like "pathetic" and "futile" because the moth is so small that he cannot do anything about the situation he's in, which we can safely assume to be that the moth is stuck in a room in a house. There is absolutely no way that a moth can break a window or get out of the room at all, so why even try? Why not accept death? If it is inevitable why try to fight? I think that when she first came to this conclusion it had an effect on her life. I think that in the time between the writing of this essay and her eventual suicide she could only think about death being inevitable, so she killed herself. Why fight? After all, "death is stronger than [she] [is]."
ReplyDeleteClever Pen Name
In Virginia Woolf’s “Death of a Moth”, she tells about the time she witnessed a moth die. The moth was trapped inside her room, and was only able to see the outside world. The moth tried all it could do to escape the room, and prevail from the pain of not being able to carry on. When the moth realized there was no escape, it gave up, and laid there to die. What in the world would inspire Woolf to recollect a memory so boring and dark? Maybe she believed the moth symbolized her, and her depression was the “window” that prevented her from enjoying the beauty of the outside world. Woolf knew what it was like to fly back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on a window just to discover that there was no exit, and she would later know the feeling of giving up, just like the moth did. As a reader, this makes me think of all the “windows” that we all face in our life. Some examples are depression, sickness, family, income, and education. As a writer, it makes me appreciate moments like these even more. Woolf could have just witnessed this moth die and think nothing of it, but she didn’t. She knew, just like I do, that life is an uphill climb, and sometimes we do let life get the best of us.
ReplyDeleteDustan Pate
I believe that Virgina Woolf's "why" is death. In her story, a moth dies unexpectedly sort of like how the author, Virgina Woolf, dies by taking her own life. Even though that the story mainly is talking about death, I believe that there is another significance and I think that is that someone should not take life for granite. In this story Woolf watches a helpless moth slowly dies and tries to save it but after some attempts to try to save the moth she eventually realizes that there is nothing that she can do to keep the mother living. I guess that once Woolf decided she did not want to live life anymore she took her own life.
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