Helena Maria Viramontes' The Moths

Helena Maria Viramontes' The Moths and Other Stories is a collection of short stories that opens the door to Chicano culture, particularly through the eyes of women in various stages of life. Her stories pain a picture of their struggles to live in a work that is transforming while traditions still have a strong hold on women, attempting to hold them back like chains around the wrists and ankles of prisoners.

Viramontes highlights the conflicts these women of color have to overcome while staying true to their cultural values. She, like many writers of color, presents a work that both draws strength from her culture while questioning and challenging the conventions of that culture. In The Moths, a few common threads run through each of the stories, thematically connecting them to one another like patches in a quilt.

Many of the stories deal with 1) isolation from internal or external sources, such as family, community, and the church, 2) life changes, from childhood to adulthood or facing the inevitability of aging and death and 3) living in the past while facing the present or the future. Through the eyes of her protagonists, she takes readers on a journey through the neighborhoods and makes her stories universal while maintaining authenticity.

Isolation is the central theme of the story “Neighbors.” The protagonist, Aura Rodriguez, has placed a self-imposed wall between herself and her neighbors. She “stayed within her perimeters, both personal and otherwise, and expected the same of her neighbors” (109). The only person she shares any kind of kinship to is Don Fierro, a man who lives behind her.

There is “a silent bond between the two” that “sprouted and grew firmer and deeper with time” (112). As the story progresses, a series of unfortunate events occur that makes Aura wishes she would just die. Her thoughts are reminiscent of anyone who feels they have nothing to live for.

Growing pains is a universal issue. “Growing” exemplifies the issue of growing up while being held back by a traditional Chicano family. Naomi, at 14, thinks she is too old to be chaperoned by her little sister because she is in America now. However, her father insists that the two girls go everywhere together.

Even though Naomi wants to be treated as an adult, she also wished for the good old days when she could play with boys without them trying to touch her. Although the story is to draw readers into the world of a traditional culture, almost any woman who has ever been 14 has suffered the same internal conflict as Naomi, the desire to be treated like an adult by their fathers and wanting to hold on to some things from childhood.

“Snapshots” is the story for women who feel that they are in a monotonous routine in life and feels that the past has been unfulfilling and the present is not quite the way they expected. Olga, now divorced, regrets that she has not lived up to the snapshots she has. The visible signs of aging plague her, like many older characters in other stories in this collection.

She considers her addition to “nostalgia” to be like other women’s addition to alcohol; she considers her addiction to be more dangerous (101). The character is almost angry at herself for trying to emulate the seeming perfection of the snapshots. She sounds like many women, who’ve lived a traditional life yet, in the end, were unfulfilled.

Viramontes successfully connects her readers to Chicano culture while using universal themes to show the similarities between all women. By doing this, she makes her literature accessible to anyone who wishes to venture into the pages of her book.

Source:

Viramontes, Helena Maria. The Moths and Other Stories. 2nd ed. Houston: Arte Publico Press.

The Moths and Other Stories

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