The Myths By Helena Maria Viramontes Summary

The main character in the short story “The Moths,” written by Helena Maria Viramontes, is a fourteen-year-old girl that can be considered to being labeled the outcast of her family. The only person the teenage girl confides in (her grandmother) dies a little each day before her eyes. In the beginning of the story, the character labeled as “Bull Hands” was a name her sisters teased her with because her hands were “too big to handle the fineries of crocheting or embroidery” and other dainty things she felt awkwardly obligated to doing. The girl often got whippings to the point to where she was “used to them,” and did not fit in with her sisters and their “girlie” ways. At the start of the story, she is a troublemaker and is very immature.

She was at a point to where the relief she felt helped her to become more caring and fond of her family. The girl wanted to be loved and understood. This was all a part of her maturing. She made a transition that gave her a positive spirit on life that she did not have before. When she spoke on how: I always felt her gray eye on me. It made me feel, in a strange way safe and guarded and not alone. Like God was supposed to make you feel. This statement stood for her having some type of insight on the religion her father wanted her to have, but it is just now clear to her. It is assumed that after the change, she will now claim her faith. In the young lady’s transition to developing herself, all the things she did not understand and did not care to comprehend makes sense to her now. The death of her grandmother, although a tragedy in her life, gave purpose to her lifestyle and this was relieving to her. The teenage girl maturing from a rebellious odd member of her family to an affectionate care-giving young lady is very much so a lesson well learned. After the good overcame the bad, she then noticed all of her wrong doings and problems. She may have put herself in most of the predicaments she was in, and it could be blamed on abusive parenting or the siblings that often mistreated her. At the end she overcame her rebellious inner self and was at peace from within, making her feel loved and wanted is all she ever