The Death of the Moth

Nature is the source of inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s keen observations and musings. The natural world offers a stream of new information, the “vigorous” field outside being so majestic that Woolf fails to pay attention to her reading material (Paragraph 1). The essay takes place on a mid-September morning. The seasons are given contrasting, distinctive natures—with this cool, lively morning having “a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Paragraph 1). The autumnal atmosphere foreshadows the day moth’s death as fall and winter are associated with the completion of the Earth’s annual cycle. In choosing to focus on a window containing a beautiful image of nature, Woolf suggests that nature itself is the medium through which life and death battle each other.

The grandeur of the pastoral scene is contrasted with the moth’s flight: “In spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky,” the moth is stuck to the window (Paragraph 2). The window pane is the creature’s entire universe. Nature’s expansiveness is made all the more magnificent when compared to the moth’s flight and the window’s four corners.