Ms. Kray
APELAC
Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth” (The Norton Reader, p. 1074)
Also read: Thoreau’s “The Battle of the Ants” (776), and Annie Dillard’s “Sight into Insight”
(1190)
This essay, one of Virginia Woolf ’s best-known works of nonfiction, combines narration and
description in the service of definition. Woolf writes with feeling but not sentiment, offering her
reader a carefully realized observation before speculating about its meaning. Woolf plays the role
of observer and reporter in this essay. What begins as idle curiosity becomes conscious
speculation, but no explicit conclusions are drawn. Although she points to possible meaning
immanent in the death throes of the moth, she does not overshadow the event itself with analysis.
Her technique here might be contrasted with that of other essayists who draw out their meanings
more directly. Consider how writers’ choices interact with discourse conventions to create a
range of possibilities in the essay form.
Vocabulary:
1. Benignant
2. Diminutive
3. Vociferation
4. Circumspection
Discussion Questions:
1. What aspects of “The Death of the Moth” do you remember best, and why? Imagery will
likely be relevant to your responses.
a. Select several images and describe the primary appeal of each (visual, aural,
tactile).
b. Determine how each image functions within the essay.
2. Does Woolf provide a thesis statement? Does she have a central point she wishes to
make? Or is her essay a speculative exercise, more important for the act of reflecting than
for making a point?
Please respond in writing:
1. Trace the sequence in which Woolf comes to identify with the moth. How does she make
her identification explicit? How is it implicit in the language she uses to describe the
moth?
2. Describe the persona Woolf creates in this essay and how she creates it. Notice her use of
the third person (“one”) in much of the essay and her shift to the first person in the last
paragraphs. What effects do these pronouns and their sequence create?
3. How and to what effect does Woolf use a kind of triple focus—the world “out there,” the
moth, and the narrator—in this essay?
4. What is the relationship between the life and death of the moth and the life and death of
human beings in “The Death of the Moth”? Does Woolf offer any conclusions about
death in this piece?
Comparing Writers and Texts:
1. Choose one of the descriptions of a small living creature or creatures in Annie Dillard’s
“Sight into Insight” and compare it with Woolf ’s description of the moth. Does a similar
identification take place in Dillard’s essay? If so, how; if not, why not?
2. Henry David Thoreau, in “The Battle of the Ants,” also humanizes small living creatures.
How do his strategies differ from Woolf ’s?
Writing Assignment:
1. Observe an insect and describe it from two points of view—one objective and one
subjective, as a scientist might describe it and as a poet or a novelist might describe it.
2. Write two descriptions of the same living creature, one using Woolf ’s strategies, the
other using Thoreau’s. Or, alternatively, write an essay in which you analyze the
differences between them.