"The Death of The Moth" Response

In Virginia Woolf's essay, "The Death of The Moth", she is addressing the relationship between life and death. Woolf compares her life to the moth as she illustrates the moth struggling to stay alive. The trapped moth keeps encountering the window that is separating it from the free, outside world. Just as the moth feels trapped, it seems like Woolf is imprisoned in the same room with no connection to the outside world. Woolf writes about the moth's struggle for life because she knows that she is like the moth, struggling to stay alive knowing that one day she will eventually die. She uses such a small insignificant animal to explain how we are like the moth and that one day we will face the same struggle to stay alive. I believe that Woolf does a good job using a common experience of seeing a small moth die to compare life and death. She also does a great job going into detail to make it feel like you are actually encountering what she is seeing. The part that stands out to me the most is how she can use such a small story to compare a much more complex idea of life and death.

Tucker Helms