The Speaker

The speaker in "The Death of the Moth" observes a moth on her windowpane one summer morning. Despite the seemingly mundane activity, the speaker is moved by the moth's energy as it travels from one side of the window to the other. The speaker meditates on the moth's actions, contemplating whether she should feel impressed by the moth's fervor for such a small task or pity that the moth is so insignificant in the grand scheme of the world. One could characterize the speaker as mostly ambivalent toward the moth, but she is also emotionally torn in the ways she thinks about life and death. Ultimately, the speaker's thoughts as she watches the moth live and die suggest that she is plagued by uncertainty over the value of life and the power of death. These thoughts are especially poignant when readers consider that Virginia Woolf struggled...