The Death of the Moth

“They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor somber like their own species.”

In this first observation, Virginia Woolf’s perspective proves unconventional; she refuses to accept the current classification of day moths. She is observant of nature, using scientific terms such as “hybrid” and “species” in combination with poetic observations about the emotional quality of various insects. She attributes human emotions to insects, humanizing them.

“Nevertheless, the present specimen, with his narrow hay-colored wings, fringed with a tassel of the same color, seemed to be content with life.”

The narrator’s connection with the moth grows as she notices its “contentment” with life. She assigns a gender to the creature, anthropomorphizing him. The reader is aware that the moth will die from the essay’s title. This is an example of dramatic irony as the reader has access to information that the narrator lacks.

“The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamor and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.”

The narrator frames the rooks’ excitement as something instinctual. The simile of the rooks as a net explores this idea, using imagery to show that the individual rooks are part of a singular, vast fabric, making up one entity. This sets some groundwork for later discussion of nature as a whole.