Narrative

The narrative style of this story is through the utilization of stream-of-consciousness. It is through the voice of a fourteen-year-old girl at the brink of adolescence; however, she remains nameless. Her voice reflects the struggle with oppression that is inflicted upon the narrator by her family’s religious, social, and cultural expectations. Her voice is resentful, angry, and at times rebellious. Although she shows her rebellious nature at a young age, the love she has for the women in her life at times makes her to be incredibly resilient—the epitome of contradiction (a motif that is common with the female characters in The Moths and Other Stories). One gets a glimpse into the world of the characters, of the world Viramontes is from, and it is then that one finally understands Xicanisma and the resilience that comes with it.

It is through the narrative of Helena María Viramontes's characters (including the narrator from “The Moths”) that we see her words come to life:

“I had to trust its power [the power of fiction] to transform chaos into order, aggression into peace, hopelessness into hope” (Viramontes).