The Death of The Moth by Annie Dillard Analysis Essay Example

Most people do not know how to read. In school, teachers tend to neglect to mention elements of style in writing,  leading students to misinterpret the author’s true meaning. Reading is not just simply reading a piece of text. It requires understanding the meaning of the author’s words. To understand the author’s true meaning you must take into account tone, diction, and syntax. Every piece of literature has tone, diction, and syntax. These key elements combined are important in reading. A good example of a passage that readers can misunderstand is the short story “The Death of a Moth” written by Annie Dillard. Initially, readers can assume that the narrator is a lonely person that is intelligent and is very observant of her surroundings and the death of a moth. However, she uses vivid and descriptive diction that underlines her true purpose which emphasizes the significance of passion and meaning in our life. She urges the readers to consider the impact and the influence they will have on society after they die away. 

The story opens up talking about a woman who lives alone with her cats. The author is clear about the woman being lonely. In the first sentence, she says, “I LIVE ALONE WITH CATS” (Dillard 371). Dillard wants to emphasize that the woman struggles with loneliness and it was clear. It is more prominent because she says it in all capital letters. Next, the author talks about the two cats; there is a black one and a yellow one. The author’s use of a cat instead of a different animal like a turtle is important because having cats are stereotyped as being lonely. The author jokes and asks the black one, “Do you remember last night? Do you remember?” (Dillard 371). For the woman to only ask this the black cat refers to a deeper meaning. Black cats are associated with death and symbolize the death of something the woman lost. The questions she asks her cat are normally not what people ask their cats meaning that she was referring to a person. Most likely a one-night stand or a person she slept with that she did not truly love. This can be assumed when she says “I throw them both out before breakfast, so I can eat.” (Dillard 371). Her word choice and use of imagery cause readers to know that the woman in the story is lonely and tries to get affection with one night encounters with someone due to the loss of something meaningful to the woman. 

 Over the next few paragraphs, the tone of the story shifts and becomes darker. However, not before she starts talking about the spider. She is amazed by the spider and its web. The author begins to talk about a spider and gives details about the spider and its corpses. The spider is referred to as her, resembling a woman. The spider resembles the narrator and what she thinks of herself and her successes. The corpses were referred to as sow bugs in the story. Sowbugs are described as “little armadillo creatures who live to travel flat out in houses, and die round” (Dillard 371.) The sowbug resembles the events that happen in her life. To her, they were meaningless, due to the way she describes a sow bug leading to the woman losing her way and deciding to go back to a familiar place. This place was in the mountains and as she explains a trip back to the mountains it is a good example of tone. Dillard writes, 

“Two summers ago I was camped alone in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I had hauled myself and gear up there to read, among other things, The Day on Fire, by James Ulman, a novel about Rimbaud that had made me want to be a writer when I was sixteen; I was hoping it would do it again.” (Dillard 372).

The tone is somber at first but swifts to be peaceful. The woman is going back to her old ways in hopes to find herself again. The author wants readers to see their self-identity. Dillard emphasizes self-identity more when she describes her experience with the moth. Dillard writes, “A golden female moth, a biggish one with a two-inch wingspread, flapped into the fire, dropped abdomen into the wet wax, stuck, flamed, frazzled in a second '' (Dillard 372).  This is a good example of syntax. The author uses compound-complex sentences and the sentence structure consists of adjectives that emphasize Dillard’s past life when the female moth flies into the candle’s fire. She can see herself getting lost in the flame. The moth is committed to the flame and works towards it. Dillard uses symbolism comparing the moth to her ideas and her commitment to her work.  Dillard says,

 “ She burned for two hours without changing, without swaying or kneeling–only glowing within, as a building fire glimpsed through silhouetted walls, like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God, while I read by her light, kindled, while Rimbaud in Paris burnt out his brain in a thousand poems, while night pooled wetly at my feet” (Dillard 373).

When Dillard narrates about the moth burning for over two hours. This implies that the moth still meant something even after it was burned. The fire symbolizes life. The fire kept burning while the moth was dead until the woman blew it out. This shows that life will go on after we die. That her light will still be burning through her work.

In conclusion, the narrator is a lonely person who longs for companionship. Her loneliness is not the issue; the issue is that she lost a piece of herself. She is intelligent and is committed to her work, but does not know that her works will live on long after she dies. She finds this when she goes back to a familiar place to find her self-identity again. The death of the moth illustrates that everyone has their candle with a burning fire that will not go out unless we choose to give up. The corpses are the things in life that people find meaningless, but they have meaning. She wants readers to understand to be committed to work and to work hard, but not to neglect the small things in life that we find meaningless, because they make us who we are and that we will live on long after death.