"The Moths" by Helena Maria Viramontes

Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

"The Moths"

(1985)

Helena Maria Viramontes

(February 26, 1954 – )

Notes

27 Abuelita: Spanish for "grandma"; common familiar and affectionate term for grandmother; the more formal Abuela means "grandmother"

27 Tío: Spanish for "uncle"

27 Amá: common familiar term for "mother" in Mexico;

27 Vicks: Vicks VapoRub rubbing camphor, eucalyptus oil and menthol jelly; see also the following links

Folk Medicine in Hispanics in the Southwestern United States

30 menudo: a tripe stew seasoned with chili peppers (Merriam-Webster)

Tamara Bartley, "8th Annual Menudo Festival" (2011; with image)
Pat Muir, "Granger Menudo Festival isn't just fun and games—this is serious business," Yakima Herald-Republic (2011)
Gustavo Arellano, "A Gut Feeling," OC Weekly (2006; "Menudo will cure your hangover but can do so much more")
Jeffrey Gettleman, "Mayor Stirs the Pot and Cooks Up a Menudo Festival," Los Angeles Times (1999)

30 Campbell: well-known company that makes soup; its two bestselling soups are chicken noodle and tomato

Campbell's Soup Company

Condensed Soups ("Easily recognized by the familiar red and white can, Campbell’s® Condensed soups have always been a staple in American pantries.")

31 Pine Sol: brand of household cleaning product with trademark pine scent; cf. Lysol

Pine-Sol

Original Pine-Sol ("There's a reason this powerful cleaner has been in your family for generations—it works. Since 1929, the unmistakable pine scent has simply meant clean.")
Original Pine-Sol® All Purpose Cleaner

Lysol

Comprehension Check

What does Luna mean in Spanish?
What illness does Abuelita have?

Study Questions

What help is Abuelita to the narrator? How is helping the young narrator through scarlet fever similar to or different from helping her through her first lie (27)? Is this like or unlike helping her "avoid another fight and another whipping" (28)?
What help is the narrator to Abuelita? How is helping Abuelita with root transplants like or unlike helping her through a terminal illness?
Why is the narrator considered unhelpful to—and even destructive for—her sisters and her immediate family?
Notice the description of the narrator's visit to the chapel (29). What does she seek there and what does she find? Is it logical or surprising that she goes to church to look for it? What does she do in the chapel and how does she feel while there? How does her behavior in the chapel compare to hers in Abuelita's house? Why does the narrator feel "safe and guarded and not alone" when she's working at Abuelita's? The narrator refuses to go to Sunday mass and is called "disrespectful and unbelieving" (29). How is this an appropriate or inappropriate description of the narrator as we see her throughout the short story? As the day wanes, the narrator is angry and tired of "unanswered prayers" (30); what might she be praying for?
Read "A Gut Feeling" and consider the significance of menudo in "The Moth."

Vocabulary

point of view; first person
narrator, speaker
characterization
plot
parallels
metaphor
symbolism; symbols
imagery
magical realism
theme
fitting in
gender roles
growing up
relationships
family
kinship
connection
motherhood; being a mother, mothering
healers; healing
affection
food
cooking
faith
belief
spirituality
Hispanic culture; tradition
illness
death
grief
psychology
pain
violence
mood; emotion
transformation

Review Sheet

Characters
narrator – "I wasn't even pretty or nice like my older sisters and I just couldn't do the girl things they could do. My hands were too big to handle the fineries of crocheting or embroidery" (27); "used to the whippings" (27)
Abuelita, Mama Luna – the narrator's grandmother; dying of cancer (27, 28); "Abuelita has pulled me through the rages of scarlet fever...seen me through several whippings...puberty, and my first lie." (27); has heterochromia iridum (each eye is a different color): "Looking into her gray eye, then into her brown one, the doctor said it was just a matter of days" (28);
Amá – the narrator's mother (27);

Apá – the narrator's father;

Teresa – the narrator's older sister; the narrator hits her on the head with "a piece of jagged brick in [her] sock...on the forehead, right above her eyebrow" (27)

Marisela – the narrator's older sister;

Setting

Abuelita's house –

porch –

bedroom –

bathroom –

chapel
Jay's

Sample Student Responses to Helena Maria Viramontes's "The Moths"

Response 1:

Reference

Link

Story Text

Helena María Viramontes, "The Moths," The Moths and Other Stories (1985)
Helena María Viramontes, "The Moths" (pdf file)
Helena María Viramontes, "The Moths" (pdf file)
"The Moths," narrated by Jennifer Goodman (mp3 file; 16:39 min.)

Chicanx Literature

"Chicana Feminism," Postcolonial Studies, Emory University
"History of Chicana Feminism," University of Michigane
Raymund Paredes, "Teaching Chicano Literature: An Historical Approach," Heath Anthology Newsletter
"Chicano Literature: Context and Controversy," Onda Latina: The Mexican American Experience
Rolando Hinojosa, "Mexican-American Literature: Toward an Identification," Books Abroad, vol. 49, no. 3 (1975; Chula access)

Folk Healing

Margo Gutiérrez, "Curanderismo: Folk Healing in the Mexican American Community," University of Texas at Austin (bibliography)
Eliseo Torres, "Mexican Folk Medicine and Folk Beliefs," University of New Mexico

Helena María Viramontes

Helena María Viramontes (official web site)
"Helena María Viramontes," Department of English, Cornell University
Sonia Saldívar-Hull, "Helena María Viramontes," Cengage Learning

Interviews

Michael Silverblatt, "Helena Maria Viramontes," Bookworm, KCRW (2007; links to interview audio, 28:30 min.)
Carmen Flys-Junquera, "Helena María Viramontes: Social and Political Perspectives of a Chicana Writer," Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, vol. 5 (2001)

Reference

Viramontes, Helena María. "The Moths." Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories, edited by Harold Augenbraum and Ilan Stavans, Houghton Mifflin, 1993, pp. 32–37.