Virginia Woolf, a prolific author, wrote the essay "The Death

of the Moth" in 1941 and had it published after her death in

1942. Following a lifetime battle with mental illness brought
on by numerous personal losses, Woolf committed suicide.
This essay on mortality and the enigma of life's meaning is
made more poignant by the author's personal story.The
central idea of "Death of a Moth" is that all living things,
including Woolf, are propelled by the same force of life as
the moth. Virginia Woolf used the big theme of "Life and
Death," which was written in the form of a story about a
moth's death, to introduce an intriguing theme to an
amazing work of literature. In this first-person narrative
essay, the speaker observes the moth's effort to break free
of her windowpane before death finally claims it.

The article begins by exploring the identity and relationship

of the day moth to nature; it finishes with the insect's
demise. The view from Woolf's window is a bucolic picture
filled with poetic imagery, featuring horses, birds "soaring,"
and an Earth that "gleamed with moisture" (Paragraph 1).
However, the moth that is flying around her window is what
Woolf finds to be the most fascinating. She finds the moth's
"vigorously" fluttering "from one corner of his
compartment...across to the other" as she sees it to be
both beautiful and sad (Paragraph 2). Woolf conveys an
emotional link to the moth's pitiful joy at its meager life and
pitiful agony at its end through anthropomorphism and
metaphor. She imparts humanity to the "frail and
diminutive" moth by asking why nature would bestow such
drive and energy on a being so constrained by its
capabilities (Paragraph 2).
 Because Woolf combines a personal account and narrative
techniques to explain her topics, "The Death of a Moth" is a
narrative essay. Woolf's exploration of Life and Death is
framed by the plot of an ordinary fall day. In order to examine
her experience from a larger perspective, narrative conflict is
provided by Woolf's description of seeing a moth's last
moments of existence before passing away.

Woolf illustrates her ideas via figurative language, such as

metaphor. A metaphor for life is a farmer laboring in his field
and a flock of birds. Later, the farmer and birds are not to be
seen while the moth lies dying.

In "The Death of a Moth," published in 1942, Woolf gives the

insect a "he" identity. The reader is moved to feel empathy for
the moth as a result of the personification of the moth. As
Woolf claims, "one's sympathies... were all on the side of life"
(1942) as the moth struggles with its impending demise.
Secondly, for being constrained into its existence as a moth.
The detached tone of "The Death of a Moth" might put some
readers off, but it actually works well with the essay's
vacillating passive and active voice to give the impression that
the reader has been transported into a daydream. While sitting
and reading a book, Woolf is detached from the activity going
on around her. She keeps an eye on the wildlife in the tree and
the activity in the field. She observes the moth fly past the
window. Although Woolf is aware of the life around her and
that it attracts her attention away from the book, she does not
actively engage in it beyond offering commentary. Woolf
distances herself from herself in "The Death of a Moth" when it
comes to life, referring to herself as "one" 1942
 The only time Woolf actively engages is when death is
involved; she now speaks of herself in the first person and
makes a feeble effort to stop the moth from flipping over on its
back. Woolf observes the moth's "simple activities with a sort
of pity" while it is alive, but the moth "lay most decently... and
composed" when it is dead (1942).

The Death of the Moth compares the insignificant short

struggle and life of a moth to the daily struggles of human life.
Moth as a symbol of human and it relates to human’s struggle
to survive and how human will encounter death as well. When
we encounter death, we become the same creature, no matter
what our status in the world before. Hence, nobody can escape
death, it’s inevitable and unescapable. Overall it's a great essay
and will definitely recommend it for everyone to read, it
contains a lot of lesson.