The moths by Helena Maria Viramontes

“I went to the linen closet and took out some modest bleached white towels. With the sacredness of a priest preparing his vestments”


Here the grandmother has died and the girl is preparing to clean her. Throughout the story there is a juxtaposition between religion and curanderismo. The girl thinks that chapels are cold lonely places to which she doesn’t connect. In her grandmothers house she finds a connection to nature and the wisdom her grandmother is imparting to her. In this quote there are some strange words. When she says “modest” bleached towels it is suggesting that even this can be sacred enough to be involved in a ritual between the girl and her now dead grandmother. The comparison of the girl to a priest is almost heretic because the girl doesn’t believe in religion or what it represents. This simple act of preparing towels is likened to a religious ritual meaning that there is a sort of sacredness in everything the girl does. Even she can be compared to a priest which is the connection between God and the masses.

Magda Pena