The Moths and Other Stories

by Helena María Viramontes

Fiction. THE MOTHS AND OTHER STORIES, Helena Maria Viramontes' stories exploring women's struggles to overcome the dictates of family, culture, and church, is in a new edition. Prejudice and the social and economic status of Chicanos often form the backdrop for these haunting stories, but their central, unifying theme deals with the social and cultural values which shape women's lives and which they struggle against with varying degrees of success.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Feminism, Literature, Womens, School, Read For School

125 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Helena Maria Viramontes (born February 26, 1954) is an American fiction writer and professor of English.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Naz (Read Diverse Books) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Moths" is a wonderful collection of short stories about the struggles and experiences of Mexican and Chicana women. The stories address issues such as sexuality, isolation from family/community/religion, oppression, illegal immigration, loss, abortion and depression, among many other complex topics.

Viramontes' writing style will challenge you, as she often changes perspectives in her narrative without explicit transition. This requires the reader to be constantly engaged in the narrative -- rereading is strongly encouraged for full appreciation of each story.

[Maythee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this collection of short stories. It was published long ago but still offers rich, innovating storytelling that most newer Chicana/o writers can't seem to properly recreate. Most of the stories are told in a non-linear manner, and require that readers "think outside the box" (e.g., what if when we die the moths that have been eating away at our soul fly out?). They are also poignant stories that capture the inner lives of women and present the competing issues that define these lives. Most of all, I wish more people would read works like this collection if they are interested in Chicana/o & Latina/o literature. These are stories are much more real than so many of those stereotypical tales that tend to sell big.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A poignant piece about a tomboyish fourteen-year-old girl with big hands and her 'abuelita' (grandmother) whom she dearly loved (and who dies of cancer). Powerful symbolisms in moths, as the girls washes her dead grandmother's body, and the setting sun. Sure-fire formula for poignant: death, love, time and remembrance.

[Shawn]

PLACEHOLDER REVIEW

"The Moths" - a young woman tells of her relationship with her Grandmother, and how she helps her in her last few days of life. Sad and moving.

[aerialxav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Startlingly original stories!!! Highly recommend.

[Missy · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a class assignment, I had the opportunity to read The Moths, by Helena Maria Viramontes. Helena Maria Viramontes is an American fiction writer who often expresses the culture of the latino community, along with their struggles and hardship they have to face every single day in society. This story is a great representation of her usual writing style. With this being said, I recommend The Moths to anyone who enjoys meaningful literature. Before reading this short story, I went in to it not knowing what to expect. However, I left it with a new outlook on life and a slight unsettling feeling. While a tomboyish girl tries to distance herself from her verbally abusive family, she takes care of her dying ‘Abuelita’ who she considers her safe haven. In the beginning of the story, the narrator holds a rather negative attitude towards life. She would always refer to the sun and how at some point of the day, it has to set and darkness will eventually emerge. But what happens after that? There was no light at the end of the tunnel in her eyes. However, after learning valuable lessons from her grandmother, she realizes that everything must come to an end, but it is necessary for rebirths to occur. Whether that is for a beautiful sunrise the next morning, or moths flying out of a deceased woman’s mouth. At this point you are probably very confused, but do not ask any questions, just read it for yourself.

[mirella‧₊˚✧･ﾟ]

for school lol

[Adolfo Rios · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the “The Moths and other Stories”, Helena Maria Viramontes’ illustrates how the Chicana experience is formed from repeated cycles of oppression, silencing, and resilience. The women in each of the stories confront adversities tied to poverty, religious expectations, and family beliefs. This highlights the diverse type of challenges faced by chicana women. By using her characters’ inner monologue to serve as the narration for the story, Viramontes creates a story that unfolds by walking with each character through their inner conflicts and development of solutions. Across her stories the protagonists are burdened by the experiences of the women who came before them. This creates a concern for the protagonists on whether they will overcome or succumb to their struggles. The stories display the perseverance of the chicana women, as they endure overlapping obstacles, unaware of each other but unknowingly fighting on the same front.
In The Moths the alienation of the narrator is created from forced religion from all those in her family besides her grandmother. Viramontes highlights the grandmother's care for the girl, as she is faced with the inevitable death of the grandmother. Struggling with identity and the beliefs bestowed upon her by her family , the protagonist finds how death of the women closest to her leads to a transformation. Similar to her grandmother who after death released moths which she described “ Small gray ones that came from her soul and out through her mouth..”(32). This portion of the story brings forth the protagonist's doubt in the religion and practices that are forced upon her. Displaying her use of those same actions she dislikes as a method of comfort for her grandmother.
In Birthday it begins by naming the protagonist. Alice begins by talking to herself in an unknown location, which leads to a setting change where she is in an abortion clinic. Again Viramontes makes use of the narration of Alice to create empathy towards this girl's story. There are no concrete details, only context clues which leave her story up to a lot of interpretation. Alice is faced with a life altering decision of whether to keep her baby or not. This decision emphasizes how frequently life changing decisions are faced by women and more specifically Chicana women. In the story, “I glance at the waiting room. There are many girls now sitting and waiting”(49). The quote shows when Alice is going back and forth between two isolating experiences. Her clouded thought is clearly shown by the abrupt changes from inner monologue to conversations with other characters or memories in the story. Even with the doubts in her mind, Alice goes through with it alone. This decision doesn't imply freedom, rather it demonstrates the courage to continue, even when faced with uncertainty and isolation.
Helena Viramonte's “The Moths and Other Stories” demonstrate that even though each story has its own distinct details that make them unique from each other it reveals the struggles seen similarly through the Chicana lens. In “The Moths” it depicts trouble with identity, and family neglect, then with “Birthday” Alice must face the challenges of life alone . Although the two protagonists have different trials and tribulations, they both are undergoing generational cycles of oppression, silencing and resilience. The struggles appear differently in the stories but they are fundamentally similar. This serves as a reminder that the Chicana experience isn’t one single form of life rather a spectrum of hardships faced due to the same root causes. Due to the narration from each of the stories from their respective protagonists, it emphasizes the courage of these women as they face their lives. The multiple short stories create an important idea of overlapping adversity and shared perseverance where distinct lives are united by resilience.
I would recommend this book to fellow Chicano readers, who are interested in the similarities of Chicanos across the country. Although being individuals with unique ways of living, the Chicano experience unifies the community. Additionally I would also recommend this book to communities outside just Chicanos as this provides insight into this community, not just Chicanos as a population but more specifically the Chicana women experience and the obstacles that come with it.

[Ryan Talavera · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Moths and Other Stories by Helena Maria Viramontes is a poetic collection that captures the Chicana life, identity, and resilience. First published in 1985, this book brings together a series of short stories rooted in themes of family, gender, cultural oppression, and survival. What makes this book stand out is it’s approach to mirror real life cultural issues in the character’s lives and the subjects it covers.
The book is about survival in the face of constraint. Many of the characters are women living in conditions such as poverty, cultural expectations, and political marginalization. The Moths, the first story, is about a woman reflecting the relationship she had with her grandmother when she was a little girl, but it also showed themes of symbolism and cultural meaning that makes it resonate.
The author doesn’t utilize the mother or sisters as much as the main character or the grandmother, as it shows significance to how healing, resilience, and cultural knowledge are often carried through women’s relationships outside traditional roles of authority. Across this collection, Viramontes uses imagery: moths, scars, water, and light as symbolic devices that give depth to ordinary movement. In Page 32, Abuelita dies and moths are filling the room, symbolizing death, rebirth, and continuity across generations.
Another story I’ve read, the Cariboo Cafe, was also very intriguing as it utilizes immigrant women experiences within an American patriarchal system. For instance, we have the poor mother standing up to protect her son from the policemen, describing herself as a washerwoman, and that she can’t read or write. By pleading the police officer not to take away her son, she is making the police officer acknowledge her identity and existence. Her being illiterate symbolizes how women had to face a barrier while caring for their children. Not only were immigrant women illiterate, but they had to face that their voices would often be dismissed. Additionally, this symbolizes a time how women would be oppressed by the American Patriotism.
This value of the book lies not just in the themes, but how it reimagines everyday acts as sacred and transformative. Washing a body, pleading authority, and remembering family bonds show reflection of history a sense of community, and acts of resistance. In the Moths, washing a body is more a gesture than a grief, transforming a labor into an expression of love. In the Cariboo Cafe, the mother’s desperate pleas to the police officer to not take her son away shows how mothers can turn into resistance against authority, and forcing them to acknowledge her humanity. Viramontes challenges stereotypes of Chicana women by portraying them as survivors and carriers of cultural memory.
I recommend this book to readers intrigued by Latino/Latina culture, feminist writing, or stories that explore resilience in the face of hardship. Viramonte's prose may be lyrical, fragmented, yet layered with symbolism, but it is rewarded with reading carefully. Her style absorbs the reader in the intimate experiences of the reader while highlighting the cultural, social, political forces that have shaped their lives. These stories are culturally specific, yet their themes resonate through many people through enduring adversity and through caring for loved ones. Overall, this book is a way to teach survival, keep memories alive, and struggles of those who may be forgotten.

[Nora Suntken · Rating 4 out of 5]

The placement and content of the introduction had me feeling very conflicted. It basically summarized every single story in the collection (and kind of spoils them) which was great to provide context, but less great if I wanted to experience the story as-is. I ended up reading about half of it before I decided to read the stories and revisit the intro later, but that ended up just making me a little confused about what I was reading. If there weren’t so many books in life I needed to read, I would’ve read the stories, then the intro, and then the stories again. Tangent about the intro aside, this was a really interesting and personal collection. The story “The Moths” was a sweet and emotional story detailing grief and growing up. “Growing” had a similar general theme of aging as a child, but this one was tinged with more whimsy and bittersweetness. “Birthday” had such an interesting narration style with its stream of consciousness flow that fit perfectly with the complexity of religious complications and abortion. “The Broken Web” was one of the most complicated stories out infidelity and misogyny in the home, and the spiraling repercussions of violence. “The Cariboo Cafe” was one I didn’t quite understand with its cast of narrators, and it was a story that made me thankful for the detail provided in the introduction. “The Long Reconciliation” was one that felt very real and current despite its setting being quite unfamiliar to me with a woman’s struggle to maintain her identity. The final two stories, “Snapshots” and “Neighbors” felt like two very different sides of the same coin and tackled the complexities of aging and becoming unfamiliar with the world around you. The phone calls at the end of the former felt like one of a family of a person suffering from dementia and the complexities of dealing with that (though it was really more about a woman relegated to womanhood and being unsure of how to continue without those perpetual duties). The latter story also dealt with a lonely older woman, though this one tackled the issues of violence in communities and the overreach of police in areas with Latinx men. The collection overall was thoughtfully written and had such a distinct voice, despite its variety of narrators. Definitely a book I’m glad I picked up on a whim while on my quest to visit all of Chicago’s libraries.

[Serena · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quote I found most compelling regarding the defiant sun was the long, run on sentence preceding Abuelita’s death: “Just about the time when time I cried
moods change. inevitable seasons of a day, transitions from one color to
another, that hour or minute or second when the sun is finally defeated, finally
sinks into the realization that it cannot with all its power to heal or burn,
exist forever, there comes an illumination where the sun and earth meet, a final burst of burning red orange fury reminding us that although endings are inevitable. they are necessary for rebirths, and when that time came, just when I switched on the light in the kitchen to open Abuelita's can of soup, it was probably then that she died." The word inevitable is used multiple times, making our narrator's tone seem resigned at first. She feels defeated in her life with all the whippings and spats with her sisters, and death is almost a similar struggle. Humans fight and fight during their lives thinking that death is the worst thing that could happen. The narrator seems a little less somber though, when she says that death is necessary for rebirth, just like when the sun rises for a new day. She knows her Abuelita is going to a better place or at least a new place. I found the fact that this sentence was a run on interesting because it felt like we were headed full speed towards Abuelita's death. The defiant sun metaphor created an interesting layer to Abuelita's death, and it felt like a universal comparison to life and death in general.

[☆ lydiature ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

i’ve said it before, but short story collections have always been a hit or a miss for me but this one was a hit!! i actually saw this on a random tiktok video and decided to give it a shot. i’m pleasantly surprised. it covers a wide range of topics like motherhood, girlhood, death of a child, death of dreams. the writing is very sharp and raw. it’s feverish and dreamy. it actually reminds me of “fever dream” by samanta schweblin and “the water cure” in terms of the writing style.

i love it when authors experiment with POVs, and this was no exception. viramontes’ passion was evident in each of her stories. each story started off on an interesting note and by the end, i was either crying or covering my mouth in shock. ESPECIALLY in the last story, “neighbors.”

i really liked all the stories. my favorite ones were (in order): the cariboo cafe, snapshots, neighbors, the long reconciliation.

the only thing i didn’t care for was the constant shifting of characters. once or twice was fine but sometimes i got really confused by what was actually happening. but the writing style was SO GOOD. definitely recommend this gem & i will 100% buy the physical copy.

story ratings:
* “the moths”- 5/5 ⭐️
* “growing”- 4.75/ 5 ⭐️
* “birthday”- 3.5/5 ⭐️
* “the broken web”- 3.75/5 ⭐️
* “the cariboo cafe”- 5/5 ⭐️
* “the long reconciliation”- 4/5
* “snapshots”- 5/5 ⭐️
* “neighbors”-4.75/5 ⭐️

[John Benschoter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't speak to the issues of the novel American Dirt as I am a simple white guy trying my best to understand others' lives. But, if anything positive came from it, it's that article in The Guardian "'Love, loss and longing': the best books on migration, chosen by writers" from which Angie Cruz pointed us to this book of short stories by Helena Maria Viramontes. These stories are poignant, raw, and brilliant. She has also written two novels, Under the Feet of Jesus and Their Dogs Came with Them, both of which are going on my short list. Viramontes' stories were published in the mid 80s, but to my knowledge have not received the acclaim of white writers published around the same time. It's a shame, because she deserves high acclaim if only for the story Birthday, likely one of the best, and most troubling, stories ever written about abortion.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I'm just too tired this week, but I felt like my head was swirling trying to read most of these stories, especially the last one that I read before giving up - "The Cariboo Cafe." The title story, "The Moths," was excellent, and I hoped for more of the same kind of precision and also pushing of the boundaries of writing and realism. But the remaining stories felt very heavy-handed and as if the author were trying on lots of different voices and narrative styles without settling on any particular one. I really enjoyed Viramontes "Under the Feet of Jesus," but this collection of stories felt like it was a completely different writer. I get all of the themes and points that the author is trying to make, but the stories themselves just didn't do much for me.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title story "The Moths" was excellent and the first of the collection. The rest offered snippets of latino life in the United States."Birthday" was especially timely, considering the events of the Supreme Court decision weeks ago. The other stories blended into one another to a fault. Writing at times very poignant but not consistent enough to make me fall in love. (this isn't always necessary for me, but her writing didn't grip me).

Overall, a solid collection of feminist stories from the 1980s.

[Annie Tate Cockrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of stories about womanhood / girlhood at different stages. The first story is from the POV of a young woman caring for her grandmother, later we have a story of an older sister and her relationship with her older sister, and towards the very end we have a story from an aging mother’s POV. The stories are beautifully written and have a wonderful attention to detail. I’m glad I picked up this collection.

3.5

[Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a masterful, brilliant collection. Each story is very dense, very layered, very emotionally and socially complex. This is extremely difficult to do with the short story form, and thus a total must read from simply a craft perspective.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1995, very beautifully written and pretty unsettling. Strong intersectional text. Some of the stories get pretty trippy, surreal in narrative style. Would want to teach the first two stories, I think,

[Elle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for school.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some chapters were mind-boggling and very thought-provoking. One was so full of crude language that it brought down my opinion of the whole book.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

The Moths --2
*Growing
Birthday
The Broken Web
The Cariboo Cafe --2
The Long Reconciliation
*Snapshots
Neighbors
***
*The Jumping Bean

[Dianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not get get interested in this book. I tried.

[Hope Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

A chronologically confusing read

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are pieces that make you feel. That get you thinking. Remove you from your small world and open your eyes.

[Audrey Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story that was hard to follow. I only read “the moths” not the others in the collection.

[Rachel Sturley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read a few of these stories but so beautiful!

[Abby]

There are, unexpectedly, strong parallels to Dubliners in the way this is structured--the simulation of aging, with stories about young people at the beginning, followed by ambivalence or outright rejection of motherhood, and ending with stories about old men and old women. Though both Viramontes and Joyce begin with death as the starting point.

Beyond that, the structures of some individual stories became nigh unworkable. I'm not a super lazy reader, but "The Long Reconciliation" almost did me in. I see your point, sure, about weaving time...but help me out here. And the jump cuts between characters, the way we trip on a word and land in another scene or point of view--I stuck with early Joyce for a reason, people.

Viramontes weaves a number of tragedies, and all these women are pretty stoic as they watch their best efforts come unraveled. But there are moments of such pure joy, sitting at the edge of your seat at the stickball game, or whispering love, or pouring rosewater for your father-son shaving ritual, that it's hard know what caused the downhill slide. The tragedy is in Piri's father calling one of the neighborhood girls a dog because she nailed his son with a ball, and then telling his son to "take it like a man." The tragedy is when Toastie and his friends get roughed up by the police, and then take it out on the old woman who just wanted them to talk a little quieter. There is no real karma here--just passing on the shit you've been handed.

[Ivan Lamas Sanchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the short stories but I felt that I needed more depth to learn and immerse myself fully in the characters.

[Charles Kato · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes is the story of a young girl’s metamorphosis from awkward insecure teenager to a wise and focused young woman. The young 14 year old girl, who narrates the story, has many quarrels with her sisters and parents over her tomboy manner and their lack of acceptance. In turn the young girl finds it difficult to accept her own family. She finds an escape from this home’s cold and unloving atmosphere in the warm acceptance of her grandmother, Abuelita. Through her grandmother she becomes aware of her own desire to love and embrace others. The young girl feels a true need to accept her family for the first time after she realizes the lesson her grandmother has taught her. This is also when she realizes that she too is capable of loving. The author suggests that if insecurities are not transcended then acceptance and love of others can never be found. A lovely story and certainly worth reading.

[Andy Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The old adage "don't judge a book by its cover" is particularly true with this text. I believe the cover sabotages the content. You sort of expect stories about cholas and gang life, but that is the furthest thing from this rich collection of stories. Many people love Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street, but they don't particularly move or stir my soul. I would recommend these stories over those any day.

The short stories here, particularly "The Moths" is a good one, capturing the spirit of Mexican life with a touch of magical-realism. The ability of a writer to blend magic with the mundane seamlessly is a gift.