He would grab my arm and dig his nails into me to make sure I understood the importance of catechism

This passage is from “The Moths’ by Helena Maria Viramontes. The young narrator describes her father’s reaction to her refusal to attend mass on Sunday. Apa is violent and he allows his fists to speak. He uses profanity and physical abuse to express his rage and his daughter is the object of his abuse. Since the narrator symbolizes the struggle for identity as an individual in general, she also represents the struggle for religious identity. She comfortable in Abuelita’s house, which represents everything grounded in nature, rather that in the chapel. Apa symbolizes Spanish Catholic fathers. He represents the brutality of conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism. Apa wants his daughter to submit to his command. But young woman find no comfort or God in the chapel, “I was alone. I knew why I had never returned”.

Inna