Ana Castillo's So Far From God

Fe tries to get the better ordinary job she can and find a good, old-hat(predicate) brio--only to be jilted by her fiancT and only to fall into hysterics for several(prenominal) months thereafter. Now all of this takes place in the first chapter of the story. In other words, the author is explaining the surroundings by explaining, in a tone of back-yard gossip, the women of Sofi's family.

Sofi is defined by the culture and environment in which she lives because she interprets and explains events and behavior of other people through the eyes of that culture. The main feature of that culture seems to be dissimulation, religion, and superstition. Magic is also a major part of the narrative. This surfaces when Loca rises from the dead (really an epileptic coma) (Ca tranquilo 24-5). It surfaces when she has visions of La Llorona and becomes a prophet of her sister Esperanza's death in the Persian gulf (Castillo 160-1). It also surfaces when Caridad's body heals completely after she is beaten and set on and when Domingo wins the lottery by playing the numbers of a authorize plate (Castillo 56-8). The issue of religion is evident throughout the novel. so the "curandera" Felicia, places trust in God and ritual. The importance of religion and magic as defining features of the culture is best summed up by Caridad:

[T]o Caridad such(prenominal) events as her Holy Restoration, her clairvoyance, the Screaming Sister (a some unkind people back in Tome still referred to Fe), and such were just part of life. Falling in love . .

Sofi's emotional outlook is more mundane. However, it is still touched by superstition. She complains that her grown daughters are not providing her with grandchildren in the normal way: "I had to produce the kind of species that wing!" (Castillo 84). Now this does not mean that Sofi rejects her children.

In that regard, Sanford explains that it is important for parents "not [to] punish children with rejection" (Sanford 59). On the other hand, the life of sacrifice that Sofi make for her daughters is not entirely good for them. She is psychologically dishonest close Domingo's deserting the family for 20 years. Actually she made him leave because of his gambling. Thus--to follow Sanford's line of argument (58)--the fact that the daughters were deprived of bonding with their father had the substance of allowing them to identify with the Shadow part of psychological experience. It is not affect that each daughter matured by responding to the "Shadow" of an environment where magic and superstition are important.

Caridad's perspective shows a pipeline between the magic (which is so important to the inner life of the family) and the reality of disappointment with love and marriage. The fact that she considers the magic to be ordinary--yet also finds wonder in the "miracle" of sunrise--is consistent with the fact that she becomes a hermit, then a channeler (Castillo 90-91; 115ff).

. now that was something else altogether! (Castillo 80).

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