So Far From God

Sofi had devoted her life to being a good daughter, a good wife, and a good mother, or at least had given it all a hell of a good try . . . Now there was no mother to honor, no father to respect, no 'jitas to sacrifice for, no rancho to maintain, and no land left to work (Castillo 218).

The purpose of this research is to examine the transforming character of Sofi in So Far from God by Ana Castillo. The plan of the research will be to set forth the cultural and social context in which Sofi can be seen as shaping her identity from her environment and family history. Also discussed will be psychological implications Castillo's portrayal of mother-daughter relationships--especially how human relationships are shaped by the response to unique cultural forces.

In a way, Sofi is defined by a social environment of women and small-town gossip. This can be seen in the form that the storytelling takes from the beginning to the book. That is, Castillo tells one little story after another about what happened to all of Sofi's daughters to make them grotesques in their little town of Tome. Thus Loca seems to die and then seems to raise from the dead. Her epileptic fits have the look of insanity. This is why she gets the name La Loca. Esperanza enters college and becomes a successful career woman. Caridad has a pattern of good-time living--and getting pregnant (three times) and getting an abortion each time. Ultimately, however, she is beaten and raped and mutilated by men who are never ca

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vitation, and she simply takes Felicia's dream that Caridad is flying literally. Esperanza's flying to cover the Persian Gulf news results in her disappearance. Her superstition also explains why Loca's report from the vision of La Llorona about Esperanza's death in the Middle East is completely credible--and throws Sofi into complete grief at the news (Castillo 160-1). Only la Fe "stays earthbound," says Sofi. But this is no emotional comfort because Fe is stuck to unrealistic dreams of home and family with her first love. Meanwhile, Sofi's own life has been an emotional disappointment because she had to raise four daughters alone. Even when her husband Domingo returns, he waits for some time to beg forgiveness of Sofi and resume marital relations. After undergoing many changes of outlook, Sofi meditates on the fact that she had been a single mother: "And all her life, there had always been at least one woman around like her, left alone, abandoned, divorced, or widowed, to raise her children" (Castillo 161). In other words, this condition of single motherhood has been a familiar feature of Sofi's culture. The mother-daughter relationship for Sofi as a single mother during those years has been defined by what Sofi has been oblige

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