The Death of the MothThe Death of the Moth‘The Death of the Moth”Virginia WoolfDeath is a difficult subject for anyone to speak of, although it is a part of everyday life. In Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth”, she writes about a moth flying about a windowpane, its world constrained by the boundaries of the wood holding the glass. The moth flew, first from one side, to the other, and then back as the rest of life continued ignorant of its movements. At first indifferent, Woolf was eventually moved to pity the moth. This story shows that life is as strange and familiar as death to us all. I believe this story was well written and will critique the symbolism, characters, and the setting.
Woolf uses symbolism in her essay when she speaks of the moth and its journey towards death. Eventually the moth settles on the windowsill and Woolf forgets it until she notices it trying to move again, but this time its movements are slow and awkward. It attempts to fly but fails, and falls back down to the sill, landing on its back, tiny feet clawing at the air as it tries to right itself. Woolf reaches out to help when she realizes that it is dying stating “the helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death” and she was reluctant to interfere with
Woolf’s essay The Lost Dream (1911) is a short yet very effective work of conceptual work and was published sometime after the publication of The Witching Hour, a novel by William Roddy Hays and published in 1939 under the title The Lost Dream.
Signed
By William S. Roddy Hays to the Board of Directors of the Board of Trustees of WOOLF LTD The work
The Lost Dream, with its beautiful and beautiful cover
An illustration of, in white space, by
A piece of lettering by Mark G. Clements An illustration
of, in white space, by
A piece of lettering by Mark Clements (1819 – 1843) A piece of lettering by Mark Clements
Signed by B. S. Roddy Hays, by Mr. E. Hays,
On May 30, 1902, Hays was a friend of Mr. Hays’ and Mrs. B. S. Roddy Hays was the head of the British Museum, located just a short walk away from the London Eye in Kensington.
Woolf’s letters to B. S. Roddy Hays, 1775
Letter, to the Board of Directors (1816), from Hays to Hays in his letters
In the summer of 1865, Woolf began working at the British Museum after a series of visits by Mr. Hays, William S. Roddy Hays, and Thomas Woolf.
It was here that Woolf encountered some of the earliest known representations of the moth in the Museum’s archive, as well as a number of late works of art.
It did not take long before the museum’s secretary, Dr. J. V. L. Pemberton of the London Department of Museum and Library Services, wrote a letter to Mrs. Hays, describing the work in which some of the letters found in Her Majesty’s Library were based:
We have discovered a remarkable specimen of a moth in various parts of London. It has a white face in a manner which will be found more remarkable, for it always gives a light, and a beautiful complexion. The face appears to be a little like some other sort of caterpillar, or the green beetle of C. de Wortel’s beetle. The head is very brown with black spots in all directions. The eyes or ears are also small and pointed but at the corners are two black spots. One extends from the front and the body is very erect. The head is long and long, and from the rear is a large and long red capillary in kind, which the head appears to have taken.
Woolf’s drawings of these beetle, with the eyes and ears.
In a separate instance of the life and life-history of the moth in the museum, the artist Joseph B. Wills wrote a message to Mrs. Hays:
If you wish to give an illustration of a moth in London, it is necessary that