Apa in "The Moths"

Megan Callaway


Apa in "The Moths" represents forced catholicism and the Spanish father's of the church through his violence and profanity. He is associated with nails, fists, whippings and the chapel in which he forces the young narrator to go. The chapel is constrained, empty, lonely, and cold which are metaphors for him. He is constraining her by his cruelty just as the entombment of the chapel does by inert isolation. He is abusive and is the reason Ama cannot attend to her own mother when she is dying. He represents the opposite of Mama Luna, which is the reason Ama sends her daughter to her grandmothers. She hopes her daughter will learn from Mama Luna as she did not and escape the cycle of marrying another Apa.