Amina Qizilbash

04/01/2014
Death, Light, Life and The Death of the Moth Comparative Analysis Homework
To me Trudy in Dust, Light, Life is characterized as a moth which is described in
Woolfs essay Death of the Moth. The moth is personified in Woolfs as having a disability
like Trudy did in Dust, Light, Life. These two can be interchanged as the basic ideas behind
them are the same. Both essays make a universal point about the struggle that one faces when
one is not conformed to others of the same population or species.
Moths, in Death of the Moth are describes as not proper, do not excite, hybrid
creatures. These descriptions can be taken into account for any disable person. Hybrid, in
scientific term means when two animals from different taxa interbreed creating an animal
different from the two yet similar. Hybrids are sterile implying more on a disable persons life;
just how Trudy needs the help of her colleagues and husband. It was difficult for her to do any
work on her own.
In the crowded hallways and on the stairwells between classes, students and teachers
bustled past, talking on cell phones, texting eating, laughing. Occasionally, a blind student would
navigate this route more slowly with a guide dog, and of course there were the inevitable student
with feet in castes; but generally the pace between the ten- minute pause was brisk- and if not
indifferent, the people hurrying by were not attentive to Trudy, who continued, with increasing
frequent, to get stuck in awkward places This paragraph in Kolosovs essay parallels with the
Woolfs description of a pleasant morning it was a pleasant morning exciting experience
and how the moth fluttered sided to side of his square of the window pane. Just like moth made
no difference if he was out or stuck inside the house, Trudy also was not given attention by the
students and other people. This pushed out the idea of a disabled or a disadvantaged person or
species being helpless. This idea of helplessness is seen in moth of the essays which furthers the
idea of how death is unavoidable and how you become so helpless when death approaches.
Woolf points out the beauty of struggle made by the moth. The moth does not just give
up but rather continues to struggle till his last breath. Similar to what Trudy is doing, that is, she
is still teaching even though she has Parkinsons. But towards the end Trudy says that this might
be her last year of teaching which marks the moths death in Woolfs essay. Trudy and the moth
are willing to accept things as they come their way. Trudy decides no giving up her job which is
in Woolfs essay the inevitable death of the moth.
Both these readings point towards the idea of an inevitable nature for the disadvantaged.
Moth being the gray, dull hybrid and neither gay like butterflies nor some like the own species
as described in Woolfs essay and Trudy having the Parkinsons disease, Carolines mother
having breast cancer all have in some way or the other a similar kind of end to their lives.