And The Earth Did Not Devour Him

Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. “[L]ost” (Chapter 1)

2. He is calling himself in the dream. (Chapter 1)

Short Answer

1. The boy finds himself lost in his thoughts, feeling that there is “no way out.” (Chapter 1)

2. He delays telling his mother that he drank the glass of water that she leaves out for the spirits. (Chapter 2)

Chapters 2-4

Reading Check

1. That “he is fine” and will be “returning already next month” (Vignette 2)

2. “[A] little medallion of the Virgen de San Juan del Valle” (Chapter 3)

3. Utah (Vignette 3)

4. Check hair for lice (Chapter 4)

5. The cemetery (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. After forbidding his employees to take unmandated breaks for water, the boss becomes angry when he sees one of the child workers disobeying him. He tries to scare the child by firing a warning shot, but then accidentally kills the boy. He “got off free” for his actions. (Chapter 2)

2. Chapter 3 is written in the style of a prayer to God. A woman asks God to protect her son while he is fighting in Korea. (Chapter 3)

3. After being targeted in a hate crime by a peer, the boy is blamed for starting the fight as the “Mexican” student. The school administrators are not concerned if he leaves, since he is needed to work in the fields. (Chapter 4)

4. The first speaker says that they attend school because it leads to more opportunities later. The second speaker replies that “[t]he poor can’t get poorer [and they] can’t get worst[sic] off than [they] already are.” (Vignette 4)

Chapters 5-7

Reading Check

1. Because his dad pays Don Laíto and Doña Bone so the boy to live there. (Chapter 5)

2. That he cannot get a haircut and he should leave (Vignette 5)

3. “[W]hen he saw his mother crying for his uncle and his aunt” (Chapter 7)

4. He becomes enraged and “curses God.” (Chapter 7)

5. “[H]e saw the earth opening up to devour him.” (Chapter 7)

Short Answer

1. The speaker lives with Don Laíto and Doña Bone, a couple who frequently steals, until the end of his school year. He feels uncomfortable at their place, as their rotted food frequently makes him sick and his sleeping arrangements make him scared and uncertain of his surroundings. (Chapter 5)

2. After a man starts to visit Doña Bone, Don Laíto and Doña Bone ask the speaker to dig a “cellar” in the background. The speaker learns that the “cellar” was really a grave for the man. The couple force the speaker to help them bury the body, threatening to tell the police that he killed the man if the speaker tells anyone. (Chapter 5)

3. After waiting for his family and parents to fall asleep, the speaker slips out to a nearby knoll to “call” the devil. After the “call” does not work, the speaker realizes that if there is no devil, then other elements of religion must not exist either, and that people become crazy after the devil does not appear because they realize he does not exist. (Chapter 6)

4. A group of men are promised lessons in carpentry by a Protestant pastor; however, the lessons are never given and the pastor’s wife runs off with the man who was supposed to teach the classes. (Vignette 6)

5. The speaker’s father gets sunstroke after working in the field. As his father’s condition worsens, the speaker becomes angry at both his mother’s futile attempts to remain religious and God’s neglect of his father. (Chapter 7)

6. The grandfather asks his 20-year-old grandson what he wants in life, and the grandson replies “for the next ten years to pass by immediately so that he would know what had happened in his life.” The grandfather calls him stupid, a reply that the grandson does not understand until he actually turns 30. (Vignette 7)

Chapters 8-10

Reading Check

1. Because he spends the night worrying about how many sins he has previously committed (Chapter 8)

2. Because it might be “the only shirt the child had” (Vignette 8)

3. So the dust does not get “stirred up so much once the dancing got started” (Chapter 9)

4. Because the “Anglo” woman was driving drunk (Vignette 9)

Short Answer

1. The speaker sees a couple having sexual intercourse at the cleaners next to the church. Already worried about his own sins, which he must confess for his first communion, he begins to feel that he has committed a “sin of flesh,” even though he had nothing to do with the act, and he imagines all the adults in the same act of sexual intercourse. (Chapter 8)

2. The García family is comprised of Mr. and Mrs. García and their three young children. They leave their children at home while they work in the fields because the bosses do not like children there. One day, the house catches on fire while the children pretend they are in a boxing movie. As a result, two of the three children die. (Chapter 9)

3. Ramón and Juanita are a couple in Texas who continue to date after she moves up North. After hearing rumors that she was flirting with other men, Ramón confronts her and they break up. Still in love with her, he sees her at a dance with another man and, as a result of the argument, dies by suicide by electrocuting himself at the power plant. (Chapter 10)

Chapters 11-13

Reading Check

1. Toys (Chapter 11)

2. The journey up north (Chapter 11)

3. To travel to Barcelona, Spain (Vignette 11)

4. Because most likely, “some gringo […] couldn’t stand seeing him in town with that white girl he brought back with him from Wisconsin.” (Vignette 12)

5. To Des Moines, Iowa (Chapter 13)

6. “[T]he spoken word” (Vignette 13)

Short Answer

1. Determined to provide her children with a special Christmas, Doña María decides to leave the house and buy them gifts. Since she rarely leaves the house, Doña María becomes anxious in the large crowds at the store and, while attempting to get fresh air to calm her nerves, she accidentally shoplifts. She is quickly caught by the security guard, and she is briefly in jail. (Chapter 11)

2. A door-to-door salesman comes to the community offering enlarged portraits for an upfront cash fee. Soon after the salesman does not return with the promised orders, the swindled customers find a bag of the original portraits in the dump. Don Mateo tracks the swindler down and forces him to draw an enlarged portrait of his son. (Chapter 12)

3. The chapter is composed of the inner monologues of the workers in the truck. Their inner dialogues reveal that the conditions of travel are poor, that many of the workers are unhappy and unsatisfied with their life, that although they are traveling to make money, they are in debt or losing money on this journey, and that they are concerned for their children. In particular, the driver’s inner monologue indicates that he plans on leaving them in Iowa without a ride back to Texas. (Chapter 13)

Chapter 14

Reading Check

1. Because the rain might ruin the crops (Chapter 14)

2. Because “[h]e had made a discovery (Chapter 14)

Short Answer

1. The boy is hiding under a neighbor’s house because he does not want to attend school. (Chapter 14)

2. The content of his monologue reveals that the previous narrations and vignettes are all related in some way to the boy’s life (e.g., family, community, etc.) over the past year. The boy concludes his monologue by realizing the only way he can “see all the people together” is in a “dream.” (Chapter 14)