Lit. Blog Response #3

What is the value of happiness to Margarita’s family?

Happiness is often described as the quality of being cheerful and content. A lot of us value happiness as much as we value our family members. The state happiness brings joy and family fortunes to all of its members. As we read Rain of Gold, we encounter several moments where family happiness has played a big role in the story. Dona Guadalupe and Margarita family’s stories are two different stories but yet they both have strong values for family Happiness. An specifically example is shown in chapter fourteen when Juan Salvador is living in Montana by himself and gets a telegram from Luisa saying that if he wants to see his mother alive one last time he ought to come home as soon as possible. And without thinking twice about the situation he boards the train that will take him to California. When he arrives to his mom’s house he finds out that in fact his mom was not ill nor was going to die anytime soon. And all that Margarita wanted was to see her last child she had given birth to get married. “The only thing that kept me alive, mi hijito… is the promise that I made you in the desert, that I’d live to see you grow and big and married (224). By saying this, Margarita shows how important is for her to “die” in happiness. Seeing his younger child get married and have a family of his own, for her is the only thing that has kept her alive for all this years that she has being way from Juan. The fact that she wanted Juan to comeback so they can all be together again shows how important the value of family happiness is for her in the family. We can relate this same topic to what is happening with Dona Guadalupe’s family. Dona Guadalupe has this strong believe that Sophia is not death and that one day she will find her. And the moment that she finally does she plants the flower that she brought from Lluvia de Oro and she had promised that she was going to plant it the moment she’d find Sophia. We can think of the floor as being Dona Guadalupe’s happiness. It is mentioned that before she found Sophia the family was thinking she was going crazy, but when they find out that Sophia is alive, Dona Guadalupe comes back to live. As if happiness squeezes her once more.