Abuelita’s death
Abuelita’s death marked the rebirth of the narrator’s new life, from rebellion to responsibility and change of behaviour. The end marked the narrator’s leap to maturity until Abuelita’s death; the narrator is presented as a very rebellious and troublesome individual who is not respectful to neither the mother nor the father. Abuelita passes on when the girl is with her alone in the house, making some soup in the kitchen. But what an abrupt change of character? To her, the grandmother was the only one who gave her the love she had desired, the only one who reassured her. So Abuelita’s death marked the turning point from all her bizarre ways. When she finds the grandmother dead, she instinctively knows the right and appropriate thing to do. Like the sun that must meet the earth according to the narrator, it was time for her to go. “…transitions from one colour to another …when the sun is finally defeated, finally sinks into the realization that…although endings are inevitable, they are necessary for the rebirth.”
The sun in this scenario has been used to symbolize the ending life of Abuelita, which meant that a change in her character was necessary. The rebirth of a new person and new relationships was going to begin after this death. Now that her only source of love was gone, the new establishment was to be made by the people she least found comfortable; these are; her mother, father and siblings. She washes Abuelita’s body with lukewarm water and towel and carries it to the bathtub, and they both sunk in. Moths are seen coming out of the grandmother’s body and overflows over the tub in the bathroom. Moths symbolize social and cultural ills that the narrator was going through. From the oppression of the father, and the demeaning remarks from her siblings on how she looked. All troubles were to go with the sunset of the grandmother, and she had a fresh start for herself, knowing that she is worth and assured.
Circumstances that happen to an individual’s life do not shape their character, but individuals are born with characters in them. The narrator is well aware of her looks but still gets offended when her siblings make demeaning comments of her from her looks. She acknowledges the size of her fingers and calls then bull hands that cannot handle fineries like crocheting. Surprisingly, she hits her sister Teresa with the jagged brick she kept is her sock; this act portrays a violent character that attacks and injures others. The trait of violence cannot be attributed to her physical appearance, which makes others make fun of her, but it is a character that she is born with and is within her the demeaning remarks catalyzes it. The mother tries whipping as a way of shaping her character to be a respectful, nonviolent person, but all this isn’t impactful at all since she has become used to whipping.
Additionally, the narrator is born rebellious, and no amount of pressure can make her bow to any authority. It is within the social and cultural convention of Chicano people to adopt Christianity by going to church and practicing catechism. The narrator’s specific family, especially the father, is a staunch Christian. Despite the pile of pressure from the narrator’s parents, she defies to concede to the conventional norm of the society to go to church. To her, this made no sense, although she was considered the most sinful in the family. In this context, the rebellion was inborn, and no circumstance within her family was going to change that. All this affirms that character is inborn and not circumstantial.
On the flip side, one circumstance happens in the narrator’s life that abruptly changes her character. The point in the quote is the eventual death of Abuelita, the adorable grandmother too her. The narrator’s character, which is predominantly highlighted in the story, is rebellion. Finally, this character has transformed to be responsible for something that happened instinctively, she says, “she was not heavy as I thought and when I carried her in my arms,” These marked the beginning of a new person, a rebirth of freshness. The death of the grandmother made her change to this caring, responsible person with an evident depiction of compassion. To the narrator, she feared loneliness, and she felt that Abuelita was lonely at her time of death with the moths eating her spirit. Out of these fears, she sobbed for her mother, which marked the start of a better relationship between the two. The death made an affirmation that one circumstance can influence the character of an individual.