Symbolism in The Death of the Moth - Book Report/Review Example

Moth: A Symbol of Defeat Virginia Woolf, in her essay ‘The Death of the Moth,’ has described the human defeat at the hands of death in a brilliant way. Her essay gives an eerie feeling and makes the reader shudder with the idea of human helplessness. With the aid of symbolism, Woolf makes the reader feel as if he is having face to face interaction with death and looking into death’s terrible eyes directly. Woolf has incorporated symbolism through ‘moth,’ and other characters and descriptions in her essay.

However, the most important symbolism in her essay is the struggle of the moth to stay alive. Woolf has used ‘moth’s struggle’ as a symbolism for human helplessness and defeat at the hands of death. It is a symbol of weak getting overpowered by the strong and dark power. The words ‘vast net with thousands of black knots’ describe nothing else but the presence of death in the air. In her essay, Woolf has used horse, ploughman and rooks as a symbol of strength. According to her, the energy that inspires these strong beings becomes a death for a moth as the energy is too strong and powerful for it to handle.

Woolf’s message through her essay is that no matter how much efforts a human being makes, he cannot escape the clutches of death. According to Woolf, the window symbolizes the closed life of human being. Through the moth’s inability to look at the reality that he cannot go beyond the window, she has described how human being’s life is limited and prison like. She sends a message that like a moth, human beings fail miserably and cannot get freedom from life’s harsh realities. In a sense, moth’s struggle and failure to escape from the window and gain freedom symbolizes the inability of human beings to win over death.

Hence, in a way, Woolf’s essay ‘The Death of the Moth’ says that humans should not try to fight death as it is of no use. Hence, it will not be wrong to say that Woolf, through her essay ‘The Death of Moth,’ gives a message of despondency and gloominess of human spirit. Work Cited Woolf, Virginia. “The Death of the Moth.” Bedford St.Martin’s, 1942. Web. 30 Jan. 2013.