Ana Castillo's So Far From God

760 Words2 Pages

When were little we start follow the idea of extraordinary stories. This could range from believing in a higher power, to the tooth fairy leaving a quarter under your pillow after you’ve lost a tooth. Once we grow up we need reasons for why certain things happen. These explanations help relief us and gives a sense of purpose to figure out how to live. Ana Castillo does an excellent job of incorporating ways to cope and perceive all of these “extraordinary” events in her book So Far From God. Castillo harped on the importance of women and using them to depict special events. The amount of fiction and reality that occurred when telling the different stories of saints, mystics, pilgrims, healers, mothers and activists allows us as the reader to …show more content…

There are many extraordinary differences between humans and there are many ways to interpret the reason for an illness. An example of this from Castillos book would be the death and rising of Sofia’s daughter La Loca. Dying then coming to life can be looked at many different ways. Especially the time frame in which this story took place. Religion was heavy in Sofias life and so from her eyes it would be easy to look at what happened to La Loca as a miracle. But from a science aspect it would be easy to say she was in a coma and came out of it at a remarkable time. Castillo brought the idea of evil through Father Jerome saying, “Is this an act of God or of Satan that brings you back to us” (17). Reading this made me think possibly the baby was possessed and brought back …show more content…

For example, the idea Loca was special is easy to discuss and prove but also debunk. Castillo prods the idea of La Loca having something a little extra by saying, “Loca went to sleep in the Lady’s arms thinking for a person who had lived her whole life within a mile radius of her home and only traveled as far as Albuquerque twice, she certainly knew quite a bit about this world, not to mention beyond, too, and that made her smile as she closed her eyes” (299). When Castillo adds the part about knowing the beyond, it makes you immediately step back and think of when she died and came back to life. Even though we know she was diagnosed with epilepsy, it could mean that she was resurrected by a spirit of some sort. La Loca’s death harmonizes the with realism and religion because La Loca is never clear about what the beyond is. The beyond for all we know from reading this could be darkness or a heaven of some

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