Light-Coloured Moths Case Study

In the short story, “The Moths”, the narrator, a fourteen year old girl, assumes the responsibility of taking care of her cancerous and dying Abuelita. Her Abuelita is the only person who understands the narrator and the only person she feels she can turn to. After having followed man’s rules for so many years, Abuelita passes away. All the moths that lived inside her are freed and the narrator learns some life lessons. Helena Maria Viramontes uses symbolism and setting to illustrate the oppression of women in “The Moths.”

In the short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the author uses symbolism and characterization to paint the scene of a girl in a literary fiction that has lost her way and ends up finding herself within her Grandmother through the cycles of life. Through the eyes of an unnamed girl we relive a past that has both a traumatic ending and a new leash on life; however, we do not get there without first being shown the way, enter “The Moths”.

A two-part study was recently done to show what natural habitat a Pill bug, Armadillidium vulgare, naturally prefers: wet or dry environments along with a light or dark environment. It was hypothesized that a Pill bug would prefer and wet and dark environment based on its natural habitat of soil. For the wet and dry experiment, a coffee filter and soil were placed in each chamber of a double petri dish with one being dampened before being placed in. For the light and dry experiment a light was hung above one chamber of another double-chambered petri dish while the other chamber was covered with aluminum foil, after placing soil in both chambers. An equal number of Pill bugs was placed in each chamber and a study was taken for

The Moths by Helena Maria Viramontes is a short story about a relationship between a teenage girl and her abuelita. Although, the title seems unfitting for a story about a loving relationship between family members the significance of the moths, in this story, has a much deeper meaning than one would think. Like many other aspects of the piece, the insects have a symbolic meaning in order to convey the author’s feelings during the time of her grandmother’s death. Throughout the story we see the use of multiple descriptions, settings, as well as dialogue in order to pass a message to the audience. The Moths is not only a story about death and brokenness, but a story about cures and peace. Upon further examination of this narrative, the story presents symbolic attributes about the main characters personalities, descriptions, and religious imagery that tell the story about a cure for brokenness, a rebirth of hope, and coming of age.

To set up this experiment, two twenty-five gallon aquariums, 3 petri-dishes, 200 flies, rotten bananas, and yeast were used. The bananas chosen to be an accelerant for the growth of the yeast and were frozen so they would be easier to cut. The yeast was used because the drosophila melanogaster prefer this as a food source.  The vestigial and wild type flies were sexed (to determine their sex), sorted, and counted.  An initial population size of 100 total flies was decided so that it would be easier to determine the phenotypic percentage of the total population. Fly paper was placed in one of the sets of cages to impose a method of natural selection as well as the sexual selection which is being solely tested by the other set of cages.

Do you remember the last time you took a bath? A bath filled with bubbles, perhaps with a younger sibling? What about the last time you stood in a bath, holding your dead grandmother, naked as moths came out of her mouth? In the short story “The Moths”, by Helena Maria Viramontes, a young Latina misfit granddaughter matures the moment her grandmother dies. Compared to her relationship with her parents and her siblings, the bond she carried with her Abuelita was special. She found comfort with her after receiving several whippings, broken her arm, puberty and even her first lie. (1) She would gladly help her out with her gardening or cooking, although they hardly spoke, or hardly looked at each other as they worked. Although she was rebellious and callous, human experience is conveyed through magical realism, exemplifying the narrator’s vulnerability towards her grandmother.

I forgot to include two-steps of instruction which would enhance the writer in writing a Moth story. The step one I should include the beginning, middle, and end because all stories should have those parts. The beginning is how the tune of the story sets up and the plot what is talking about. The middle of the story is the climax or the meat what is going to happen to the characters. The ending is how the story ends or how the character resolve. Another step I can add which is pinpoint your turn lifetime or key time. Sometimes we when writing we do not know what direction to start so using the key time of your life will help get you the hump. Maybe your key time can be starting school or even finding your first job.

Majority of mice in New Mexico’s Valley of Fire have dark color. The population increase of dark-colored mice in Valley of Fire happened because of natural selection. Mice that do not suit the environment, which are light-colored mice, cannot survive in Valley of Fire because they are easily noticed on dark soil by the predators. On the other hand, dark-colored mice can hide easily on dark soil, which made them survive. Whereas the mice near the desert are mutated, those near the lava are not mutated. Each mouse from different lava found to have a different gene. Whereas the mice near the desert’s color change was from a random mutation, that of the mice near the lavas was not random. Because, each dark-colored mouse from two different lavas

In the short story, The Moths Helena Maria Viramontes uses characterization and symbols to shine light on gender roles and maturity especially for women in the Hispanic culture. This short story was published in 1985 and during this time gender roles were changing. The number of women obtaining a higher education increased, it became more common for women to resist the stay at home and watch the children lifestyle. Hispanics in the US during this time felt like they were losing self-identity due to harsh laws passed by the United States. Knowing this information while I read this story was meaningful because it gave me a better understanding on what the narrator and her family were going through.

In Helena Viramontes’ short story “The Moths,” she explores the thematic ideas of negativity and growth in the context of familial expectations.

Natural selection is an important component of evolution. Natural selection occurs when some members of a population are better fit for survival and reproduction than the others in that population (Phelan 284-85, 2011). The environment in which organisms live plays a part in natural selection as well. Depending on the conditions of the environment, the organisms may pass down selected traits to their offspring. These selected traits will allow for the next generation to better adapt and survive longer. One example of evolution that has occurred in the past ten years is that of hypolimnas bolina, or the blue moon butterfly. The blue moon butterfly evolved through the process of natural selection in order to survive. The male blue moon

The simulation accurately demonstrates the variation in traits and the ability of the best adapted to survive easier when simulating the process of natural selection. However, the simulation doesn’t accurately demonstrate natural selection due to the lack of heredity. In the game, the light and dark moths flew across the screen in the same numbers throughout the simulation, not showing how there would be less and less of the moths that weren’t the same color as the forest, which is how heredity works in the real world. In the Light Tree Forest, the average percentage of dark moths that remained was 49.3%, and the average percentage of light moths that remained was 50.6%. Since there wasn’t a dwindling of the population of black moths, for many

Texture refers to the quality of an artwork. It can be observed in two ways. Optically (through sight) and physically (through touch). In the book “The very hungry caterpillar”, realistic detail was used to create an imagination of texture. For example, the painting technique used to depict the tree trunk and to highlight the hairs on the caterpillar’s back made the illustrations fascinating to touch.

Because the ability to evade predators is a matter of life and death in the animal kingdom, camouflage has evolved due to natural selection (National Geographic, 2013). Going back to the famous case of the peppered moths: this particular indecent of fast acting natural selection was a well-documented example of animals in the wild changing their color through offspring in order to survive. During the late 1800's while the industrial revolution was in full stride, British scientist noticed that the normally lite colored peppered moths stood out very noticeable against the soot covered trees (National Geographic, 2013). Because the environment had changed, birds were able to more easily find and eat the lighter moths, and thus a rare, dark colored peppered moth became much more common as they were more camouflage than their white counter parts (National Geographic, 2013). This may seem like a coincidence, whoever, once Britain started to clean its air and produced less soot, the moths more common color went back to being white. This strongly supports that animals with the best camouflage survive in greater numbers, and thus pass those traits on to offspring who also stand a better chance of survival.

This means they were eaten by predators more often and thus could not produce as often. The black moths on the other hand could blend in easier and survive to reproduce more often. Overtime, the majority of the black moths had turned black. This is evidence to Darwin’s theory because it shows how species constantly change and adapt to meet the needs of their environment (Reece, 2011).