Virginia Woolf's Descriptive Essay

The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf is a great example of good writing for many reasons. Her writing is very easy to understand yet it is still writen in an interesting fashion. The use of description makes this essay so appealing and because she uses this method of development so effectivly, she is able to paint a perfect picture in the reader's mind.

Woolf starts out by describing a part of nature that seems so insignificant but as her audience reads on, they discover she takes a sort of liking to this creature which is made clear through her use of descriptive words and personal opinions. "They do not excite that pleasat sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom," and " "they are neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species," are two examples how she makes the moth seem uninteresting. But then, Woolf goes on to say "one could not help watching him. One was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him." Finally, near the end of her descriptive essay, she shows her audience she really cares for the moth and all of her focus is on the small creature where as near the beginning of her essay, she would only briefly describe the moth and then move on to describing the "mid-September, mild" morning or the "plough...pressed flat [gleaming] with moisture."

The use of description in this essay is extensive. It only helps to make her piece better. Woolf uses both objective and impressionistic description but she shifts from using lots of objective description in the beginning to more impresionistic description near the end when she is telling her audience about her reaction to the moth she has taken an interest in. "It looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air" is a perfect example of her objective desciption of the flying rooks. "He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window-pane... the helplessness of his attitude roused me" shows her impressionistic description. Instead of saying the moth was "stiff, awkward and weak" she spreads the desciption out into a longer, well formed sentence eventually revealing her reaction to audience. Virginia woolf effectivly used both types of description in her essay shifting from objective to an impressionistic feel. -very well written.