Helena Maria Viramontes’ “The Moths”
I was initially drawn to Helena Maria Viramontes’ story “The Moths” due to the striking similarities between the narrator’s experience and my own
experience with being thrust into the role of caretaker for a dying loved
one. By tracking a young girl’s transformation through dealings with
subjugation (by her culture), freedom (through her grandmother), death (of
her grandmother) and grief, Viramontes successfully paints an endearing tale of change. “The Moths” emphasizes the narrator’s oppression by her
household’s religion and by the social structures associated with it,
juxtaposed by the freedom for development available within the native
curandera custom taught by her grandmother.
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
critics whose methods/theories allow us to better comprehend Viramontes
message are Jonathan Culler and Stephen Greenblatt. Culler points out that we read literature differently than we read anything else. According to the intertextual theory of how people read literature, readers make assumptions (based on details) that they would not make in real life.
During these leaps within which we transform facts into values/themes, the
reader creates “supplementary meaning” to the text by unconsciously setting up tension, also called binary opposition. Culler describes this process in his statement “The process of thematic interpretation requires us to move from facts towards values, so we can develop each thematic complex, retaining the opposition between them” (294). Though supplementary meaning created within the text can take many forms, within V...
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...eedom was found and cultural boundaries were not shattered, simply battered, the narrator’s path was much preferable to that of her sisters (those who conformed to cultural boundaries). Through this story we can see how oppression in certain cultures changes individuals differently, creates tension between those who do not wish to be subjugated and those doing the subjugating, and we see the integral opposition between the path of Catholicism and that of curandismo.
WORKS CITED:
Contexts for Criticism. Ed. Donald Keesey. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.
________________. Jonathan Culler. “Structuralism and Literature.
288-297
________________. Stephen Greenblatt. “Culture.” 436-441
The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Cassel & Bausch. New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. Helena Maria Viramontes. “The
Moth’s” 870-874
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Alvarez, Julia. In The Time of the Butterflies. New York, NY: Penguin, 1994. Print Hardback. 31 Oct 2013 - 8 Dec 2013.
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Most of the time there is a moment in life where one realizes they have lost all innocence and gained some compassion. “Marigolds” shows how one young girl transferred from a child to young adult through her life experiences. Throughout this story another young, but at the same time old in her prime, lady’s experiences are revealed: the author’s. In this short story, “Marigolds,” Eugenia Collier’s subconscious is unmasked through symbolism, diction, and Lizabeth’s actions.
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It is clearly apparent that "The Moths" is not only the title, but also an important piece of the story which embodies its central theme. The moths become the catalyst that gives identity to the grandmother and her granddaughter, bringing revelation, security, rebirth, and the desire to be reunited. The grandmother, in becoming a moth herself, leaves some of herself behind with her grandchild.
The short story “The Moths,” written by Helena Maria Viramontes, tells a story between a granddaughter and a grandmother who both share a symbolic connection between each other. The story is in a first person narrative, told by the author, and her experience taking care of her ill grandmother while facing gender and religious oppression in her own home. The author is very distant from her own family mainly because she does not meet the expectations that her parents have embedded for her. There is a motif of rebirth throughout the story told by the author by symbolizing the significance of the gray moths. The vivid imagery of moths in Helena Maria Viramontes’ short story “The Moths” symbolizes the connection between life and death.
Ruth, Elizabeth. “The Secret Life of Bees Traces the Growth of Lily’s Social Consciousness.” Coming of Age in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2013. 63-65. Print. Social Issues in Literature. Rpt. of “Secret Life of Bees.” The Globe and Mail 2 Mar. 2002: n. pag.
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Finally we can say that the discussion in the class and the differences in the interpretations showed us clearly the differences between the perceptions of the readers on the same work. In the lights of the reader-oriented theories one can claim that there is no single truth or meaning derived from the text, the responses will change as the readers change.