Extended Metaphor in “Total Eclipse”

The extended metaphor of mining plays a significant role in Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse.” Dillard’s essay describes her experience watching a total eclipse in Washington, and the events both leading up to and following this experience. Throughout the essay, Dillard uses various extended symbols and metaphors to describe her experience and one of these is the concept of mining. On page 87, Dillard describes an article about mining that she reads in a magazine while in her hotel room the night before the eclipse: “The gold mines extend so deeply into the earth’s crust that they are hot. The rock walls burn the miners’ hands…when the miners return to the surface, their faces are deathly pale.” This article paints a picture of the mining life characterized by hardship and danger, which is a symbol of some of the emotions she is feeling regarding her plan to watch the eclipse. If not viewed properly, eclipses can be very dangerous, and they also provide a very emotional journey for many witnesses. This journey is made manifest later in the essay when Dillard lets the reader into her emotions and thoughts while viewing the eclipse. Dillard is about to endure a major event, often described as life-changing, and it would be unnatural if she did not feel some fear beforehand. The second mention of mining is reflective, described on page 93 after Dillard has revealed her experience with the eclipse: “Why burn our hands anymore than we have to? But two years have passed; the price of gold has risen. I return to the same buried alluvial beds and pick through the strata again.” Mining is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the process of digging a tunnel under a wall, fort, etc., so as to cause its collapse; (in later use chiefly) the science or industry of extracting metal, coal, etc., from a mine.” Dillard’s reference to gold implies real mining, as when Dillard returns to the eclipse sight she wishes to pick through the stone and other natural elements of her setting. However, her wish to “pick through the strata” also represents her desire to reflect on her experience and receive some answers as to what truly happened while she was viewing the eclipse. Dillard’s discussion of mining not only represents her fear preceding her eclipse experience, but also the whirlwind of emotion and confusion that she experiences afterward and her desire to return a few years later, when it would seem as though her experience was over, to “pick through the strata” again and get a new perspective on her journey.

Death of a (not the) Moth

Where Virginia Woolf discussed the death of the moth, Annie Dillard writes a similar piece detailing the death of a moth. The title of Dillard’s piece is paradoxical: it implies singularity, yet the piece itself actually discusses many moths. However, her decision to use “a” rather than “the” resolves this paradox. Woolf focuses on one specific moth: hence becoming the moth. However, Dillard’s decision to discuss many different moths gives the moths a sense of obscurity, or irrelevance in that “more is less,” which is why these moths are not important enough to be “the” moths and instead are each “a” moth. Dillard’s theme, like Woolf’s, is the temporality of life. Each of the moths Woolf describes dies so quickly, yet they leave no legacy. No one seeks to learn about the moths that die, because moth death is such a common occurrence. Dillard employs a strategy to convey the meaninglessness that follows a moth’s death that, in my opinion, backfires. Woolf details life’s fragility by exploding a moment, in which she takes five pages to describe the quick yet ultimately meaningless death of one moth. It is likely that Dillard read Woolf’s piece and was inspired, and felt as though another way to convey the meaninglessness that is associated with the deaths of these moths would be to describe repeated moth deaths. Within one piece, Dillard watches and details the deaths of so many moths, yet none of them receive any recognition or focus apart from what Dillard provides. Dillard feels as though by detailing so many moths, she conveys how often moths die yet leave no legacy, feeling as though she expanded upon what she felt to be Woolf’s brilliance. However, her plan backfired. Because Woolf described the death of one moth in so much detail, she proved her point. While the reader grows attached to this one moth because it is described so much, it dies and will likely never be thought of or recognized by anyone ever again. However, because Dillard describes so many different moths, none of the moths’ stories leave an impression on me and her piece truly ends up feeling like a collection of anecdotes with no purpose, even though this is not what she was aiming for. I disliked Woolf’s piece when I first read it: I cited the language as beautiful but said I could not relate to or become engaged by the exploded moment. However, Dillard’s trainwreck of an argument made me appreciate Woolf’s piece. Woolf beautifully traces the story of one moth, which I feel attached to by the end of the story. At the same time, Woolf was able to make her point with the one moth, because although I was attached to it, no one else ever will be. Dillard on the other hand, had an easier storyline to follow yet bored me by the end, and gave me the impression of both having an inflated sense of self-importance while also trying to be “artsy.” The moth wins over a moth, or more appropriately stated, many moths.

The Death of the Moth

Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of a Moth” explodes a moment, describing the process by which a moth dies. On the surface, the subject of this piece is very specific and limited: a moth dies a quick, meaningless death after being unable to fight a large plough. However, the moth and its death are symbols for something much greater: the temporality of life. So many individuals take life for granted, and they do not realize that it can be gone within a moment. Although the moth’s death seems like a slow and drawn-out process because of Woolf’s writing, the moth truly dies within a matter of seconds and this can and often does happen to humans in the same way. The essay initially appears as a creative, descriptive piece, however one could argue that Woolf has a purpose for writing, that she is making an argument. Woolf is making an argument: she uses the moth as a symbol for life and uses the moth’s death as a catalyst for proving to the reader how short and fragile life is. Some believe that life is long and practically endless, but Woolf successfully proves that life is short and can be destroyed within seconds.