Holy The Firm by Annie Dillard Essay

​â€Å"Death of a Moth† is a short essay from the author, Annie Dillard, called Holy the Firm, and also one of her most personal essay that she’s ever written. It is about the burning moths, her belief in God, and acceptance of her faith to being a writer. She uses the death of the moths to tell us nature’s cycle of life. Everything is the same, human and animal, life and death. In the end, they will all end up like the moth being burned up by candle light. ​In the essay of Annie Dillard, Death of a Moth, she writes about a woman who lives alone on Northern Puget South in Washington State, with one enormous window, one cat, and one spider(2). She has a flashback about two summers ago when she tried to run away from society to read and write her book, To Mountain. She tries to find herself to becoming a writer. She wants to leave the world behind and enjoy herself alongside animal and nature. She sees a moth landing on her candle light and gets burnt. She, then, describes the moth in such realistic ways which remind the readers about nature’s cycle of life. As she looks at the moth, she falls asleep. ​In the essay, the author has mentioned in her class about â€Å"you must go at your life with a broadax† (10). In theory, a broadax is a weapon or a tool used to chop down trees. At this point, Annie wants to explain to her class if you want to be something or get something in your life, you have to be willing to overcome anything to be able to get what you want. Your life is like a battle. When in battle, you need to equip yourself with a broadax, and be prepared to fight and struggle. In addition, it also shows you are willing to hack down at anything standing in your way. In practice, students also face the same situation. They try their best to overcome obstacles teachers give them to be able to pass their classes. ​In â€Å"Death of a Moth† essay, Annie Dillard tells us about nature’s cycle of life. Everything will have the same ending, being born, living for a certain period of time, and then dying. The same as the moths or ephemera stabs by fire. George has mentioned about significance of butterfly to her moths essay by posting his post on bookcritics.org(5). I would say that butterfly is the most beautiful insect I have even known. To be obtaining this beauty, it also has suffered so many miseries. It has to endured ninety months to a year in a cocoon, then it breaks pupa without any help, and transforms to a beautiful butterfly. The pity is it only lives for 3 days or a month, depending on what type it is. From the butterfly example, effort is what we can’t lack in our life. If we live without any obstacles, we will never learn or become stronger like a butterfly’s ability to break cocoon and fly up high. ​It can be seen that Annie Dillard is focusing more about the nature’s cycle life and also, expressing her effort to being a writer. She uses the moths as an example to describe her idea about nature to the readers, which is accept faith and move on with your life. In my own opinion, I would recommend or love to hear the significance of butterfly in her moth essay than reading about the moth being burned by the candle light. It was not a waste of time to write an essay about a moth, but replacing the moth to a more gracious creature like a butterfl y would better capture the audience.