So Far From God Essay, Research Paper
The book So Far From God illustrates several aspects of spirituality
and emotional restrains which makes it very difficult to focus on just
one point. Several characters are active in several activities occurring
at the same time and very few characters are engaged in just same types
of pursuit throughout the book. The character of Don Domingo, which I
will be talking about in this paper, for example, has gone wild with
his addiction towards gambling to fulfil the greed he has of making
more money then he ever has. This character seemed the most focused
of all as only thing he thinks about is, even thought it may be unethical,
different ways to make money. At the beginning of the story, Ana Castillo
tells us that Don Domingo was too much into gambling and he actually gave
up his wife for that reason. Upon realizing his mistake, Domingo returns
back to his wife and daughters hoping that everything will be same as it
used to be and tries to give up gambling. But due to the continuos
involvement with spiritual activities of his daughters, Domingo slides
back into gambling, even though he did make a little fortune which would
not really help improve his relationship with his daughters or even his
own wife. Even though he was not totally dedicated to gambling, he started
to gamble lowly, in small cockfights, but ended up loosing up everything
his family was dependent upon.
When the story takes off in the beginning, we get introduced to Don Domingo
who, despite everybody’s opposition, gets married to Sophia who actually
ran away with him. Several of Sofia’s friends and relatives thought that
Don Domingo was not a good man for her, including her grandfather who
refused to bless the young lovers, her own father refused to let Domingo
step foot in his house, her favorite teacher in high school teacher, who
always praised Sofia’s common sense and intelligence and even the priest
that refused to marry the couple in the church. Nobody thought Domingo
would make up as a good husband because of the fact that he loved to gamble.
It was in his blood and that’s one thing he did all the time after Sofi ran
away with him and they both got married. As we read towards the end of the
book, we find out that the land and the house, which Sofi and Domingo were
living in, were inherited by Sofi from his parents who got it from Sofi’s
grandparents. Domingo started betting on Sofi’s land since he had already
spent all his money in his hobby and had no more of his own money to bet
left. Sofi got really irritated by this and actually told Domingo to leave
before he brings his family on streets as they had only a little left of
what was given to her by her parents. On this, Domingo left his wife and
his four little daughters, to fulfill his hobby without anybody’s
interference and he did not return until after a long time.
Throughout the book, even though it’s not very clear on exactly how many
years did Domingo and Sofi stayed apart, but at one point Ana Castillo
mentions that it had been about twenty years since the couple had stayed
apart. After twenty years of absence and over thirty-five years of their
marriage, finally Domingo realizes that he had made a mistake leaving his
wife and daughters for gambling and he only belonged with his family. He
finally returns to his family, which was really ironic because he just
opened the door and walked in as if nothing had happened at all. There
was not any kind of emotional diversity on anybody’s face, not even Sofi,
who had gone twenty years without this man trying to “hang in there” and
raise her daughters. Domingo himself did not procure any sort of passion
from or towards his family. It seemed that either nobody cared about this
shift or they just took it as granted and since they could not have changed
it anyway, why worry about it. Since Domingo’s return, even though we never
get a clear picture of what had gone through Domingo’s life during his
absence, we are introduced to a different side of Domingo. This ‘new’
Domingo is not much different then the same old one, except, for now, he
does not gamble and instead just sits there watching the TV all the time.
He never helped Sofi in her household work or any of her other non-household
works. Even though he was living beneath the same roof, he seemed like a
total stranger from his family who would just do as instructed and would be
in front of the TV at other times. But the good part of this is that he
had not, or at least not yet, fallen back into the longing hands of
gambling. He experiences, what he had only heard about, the spiritual
involvement that his daughters consistently displayed on several occasions.
Once you are hooked to gambling, there is no safe way out and you are
pretty much on it forever. This really seemed true with Sofi’s husband,
who had gambling in his blood, when he saw the opportunity to make his bets
when something ’spiritual’ would happen to his daughters. When Caridad saw
her horse leading a herd of one hundred and thirteen horses along a creek,
Domingo immediately called his brother in Chicago and made him play the
state lottery with that number. Same night, he received a phone call from
his brother who said he had won eighty dollars on that number. This
encouraged Domingo to start betting few bucks here and there and since
then he actually insisted on feeding his daughter and would stay with
her most of the time, hoping that she would reveal another lucky number
somehow, which never happened for a week, after which Domingo gave up went
back to old ways. After few days, Caridad’s favorite horse Corazon took
off to Tome, from Caridad’s place, and somehow, it had broken it’s hoof
when he jumped over the cattle guard. The sheriff’s deputy found the horse
lying and seeing the horse in that condition, they shot him and the horse
died. Upon hearing this news, Domingo quickly asked if anybody had gotten
the license plate number of the deputy’s car who had gone to Caridad’s
trailer. When La Loca mentioned it was “M92183″, he immediately called
his brother and asked him to play the Illinois State “Big Lotto” for him.
Obviously, with his luck of having two daughters with unusual dons, he won
the big state lottery as well.
After the two incidents where he did make money, Domingo really went off
and started to bet money in the cockfights and other similar ways to waste
money. His bets started growing bigger and bigger each and every day. All
of a sudden Sofi was notified by the bank that her home, which was made out
of mud and straw and stucco and had bricks in some places, along with the
one acre of land next to her home, which was kept for La Loca’s horses, was
transferred over to a Judge named Julano. On inquiring, Sofia found out
that it was her husband, Domingo, that had lost her home, which had been
passed on to her since her grandparents, on a measly cockfight. Upon
finding this, Sofia went up to the Judge and talked with him that if those
gallo fights were illegal, how could the possession of the house, by the
judge, could be legal. On this, the judge did not really helped Sofia,
but since he did not like the property he had that much, he let Sofia live
there for a modest rent. This behavior of Domingo really ticked Sophia
off and she was off to file a divorce between her and her husband.
Domingo must have seen that this was going to happen, and he had no
choice but to do as he was told and just left. However, Sofi did not
just throw him out on the streets either, she let him live at Caridad’s
place that Domingo himself had built with his own hands, which Caridad
never got to live in, and had to pay the same amount of rent that Sofi was
paying to the judge.
Domingo represents a man that does not worry at all about his
responsibilities and would rather do things his way then follow an
intelligent women with more common sense then himself. He left his wife
all by herself who raised all four of her daughters all by herself with
no help from anybody else but the faith in herself. The fact that Domingo
left his wife for gambling, and no other obvious reason, proves that he was
a very selfish person and always seemed to find opportunities to make money,
even though it might be on the verge of somebody’s, including his own
daughter’s, death or such other incident.