Reaction to The Death of The Moth by Virginia Woolf

People can learn from anything and anyone around them. Even the simplest and most ordinary things can inspire and give new meanings to world around us. In her work, Woolf's attention is taken by a hay-colored day moth fluttering against her window. A moth, to all of us, is just another insect. It is not beautiful or colorful like a butterfly, and a day moth, Woolf says, shouldn't even be called moths for moths are meant to blend with the night. It is so small and insignificant compared to the world it is in. But despite its size and current trapped situation, Woolf notices a vital sense of life within the moth that is both amazing and pitiful.

A moth is such a simple and under appreciated being yet Woolf uses it to teach her readers something important, and that is life. The moth did all that it could do within its very short lifespan. In that time, it manage to inspire the author to write about it and showed her how much energy it had inside. Woolf made it a point to say that many people take life for granted. There are so many stories about people committing suicide or harming themselves or simply not caring that they are alive at all. The moth fought to keep alive until it acknowledged that "death is stronger than I am". Death is inevitable and life will eventually end, but that is all the more reason why we should make the most out of life while we still have it. Like the moth, we seem insignificant compared to the rest of the universe. We are tiny specks on the surface of the Earth but we are still full of energy and life. And we should use that life to teach, to inspire and to make a difference to others just as the moth did for us.