Emotions And Reality In The Moths By Helena Maria Viramontes

Fiction can be a great medium to tell stories that invoke deep emotions and thoughts within the reader, despite taking place in a fictional place these stories can often be seen as another reality. Some stories can even give real details about the writer, as well as detail a scenario that one can relate to. In her short story “The Moths”, Helena Maria Viramontes details the life of a young woman disgusted by her lack of femininity in her abusive family’s eyes, the woman is overwhelmed by her feelings and often attempts to cope with her disgusting feelings but by the end of story she is able to finally see beauty within herself due to a loved one’s death. This story may not be a glorious epic that delves deep into the subconscious and deconstructs …show more content…
Because of this, she views her sisters as the pinnacle and purest example of feminine beauty. Her hands are definitely the main focus of her discontent, her sisters refers to them as “bull hands” because she does not have the typical lithe and dainty features of a woman. To her, her hands are disfigured and are completely not reminiscent of a woman’s as they are unsteady, clumsy and brutish and cannot even participate in typical girly activities like embroidery. The only actions she feels her hands could ever partake in are violent, masculine activities since she decides to create a weapon from a brick stuck inside a brick to use against her sisters. Whether she is in the wrong or not for taking this approach, this is her way to cope with the constant barrage of negativity that attacks her on a daily basis. She does this possibly as a way to give her sisters a taste of what she feels, but of course the meaning is lost on them since all they are seeing is random violence. But, that is a typical response because not many people would get smacked into realizing their wrongdoings in such a way; it causes them to be more blind to their misdeeds so they continue to believe that there is nothing wrong with them while the attacker is the bad …show more content…
This transformation may not completely taking place, because one cannot immediately get rid of years of self-hate in a single moment, but it is definitely a step towards a more positive future. To go through the entire transformation would be a tribute to Abuelita and the calmness she