TOW #10 The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf

      Virginia Woolf, a English writer along with one of the foremost modernist of the twentieth century, composes a symbolic memoir known as "The Death of the Moth" where she ultimately compares life and death. In Virginia Woolf's narration she writes about the active journey in nature of a moth, where the readers learn as the story progresses that she is a parallel with the moth. Through the character of the moth displays the simplicity of the moth, and that acceptance is inevitable when it comes to death. At the time the essay was written Woolf was unfortunately battling a mental illness that made her reflect on her life in a negative way. Woolf reveals her lack of self confidence as she considers the "frail" moth as "pathetic" in life and foreshadows the impending doom that the moth will fate. Woolf creates a moving, yet hopeless excerpt to display the idea that, in her eyes, death is a fight that you cannot win. Woolf utilizes rhetorical devices such as a desperate tone, metaphors, and diction to convey the feeling of pity. Although the moth is at it's end of life, Woolf's uses words like "superb", and "succeed" to illustrate that effort that was made by the moth despite its lack of hope. Overall, in this piece, the character of the moth is a tangible representation of Woolf’s mental illnesses (she battled bipolar disorder and depression) as she struggles and doesnt know how to handle it.