Check your comprehension. Answer all the questions.
A Letter to God
by G. L. Fuentes · Comprehensive Lesson Notes
Lencho is a simple, hardworking farmer who lives in a solitary house in a valley with his family. His cornfield is his only source of income. One Sunday, as the family sits for dinner, a long-awaited rain begins to fall — but it quickly turns into a violent hailstorm that destroys the entire crop. Lencho’s family faces the prospect of starvation.
Lencho has absolute faith in God. Convinced that God sees and knows everything, he writes a letter to God asking for 100 pesos to resow his field and survive until the next harvest. He mails the letter from the local post office.
The postmaster, a kind and amiable man, reads the letter and is moved by Lencho’s faith. Unable to let that faith be broken, he collects money from his employees and friends and sends Lencho 70 pesos — all he could gather — in an envelope signed simply “God.”
When Lencho comes to collect the letter, he counts the money and becomes angry. Believing God could never send the wrong amount, he concludes that the post office employees must have stolen the remaining 30 pesos. He writes a second letter to God, asking for the rest of the money — but warning God not to send it through the post office, as the employees are “a bunch of crooks.”
The story ends with a bitter irony: the very people who showed humanity and charity are the ones Lencho accuses of theft.
| Character | Role | Key Traits |
|---|---|---|
| Lencho | Protagonist; a poor farmer | Deeply religious, naive, unquestioning faith, hard-working, somewhat ungrateful and ironic in his conclusion |
| The Postmaster | Secondary character; mediator of the miracle | Amiable, compassionate, generous, admires faith, goes out of his way to protect a stranger’s belief in God |
| Lencho’s Wife | Minor character | Resigned, faithful — her reply “Yes, God willing” echoes the story’s theme of dependence on God |
| Post Office Employees | Minor, collective character | Compassionate; contribute money voluntarily; ironically called “crooks” by Lencho at the end |
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1
A Hopeful Morning
Lencho watches the sky, anticipating rain for his ripe cornfield. The family is optimistic and content.
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2
The Hailstorm Strikes
Rain turns into a violent hailstorm for a full hour. The entire crop — corn and flowers — is destroyed. The field looks “white as if covered with salt.”
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3
The Letter is Written
Lencho writes a letter to God asking for 100 pesos, stamps it, and mails it from the post office.
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4
The Postmaster Acts
Moved by Lencho’s faith, the postmaster collects donations from staff and friends and sends 70 pesos signed “God.”
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5
The Bitter Irony
Lencho counts the money, finds it short, and writes a second letter accusing post office workers of stealing the rest — the very people who helped him.
🙏 Unshakeable Faith
Lencho’s belief in God is absolute and child-like. He never doubts God’s power or willingness to help — he writes as naturally as one writes to a friend.
🤝 Human Kindness & Charity
The postmaster and employees represent the goodness that exists in ordinary people. Their selfless act is a quiet form of divinity in itself.
⚡ Human vs. Nature
The hailstorm is an uncontrollable force that wipes out a family’s livelihood in an hour — a reminder of mankind’s vulnerability before nature.
😔 Irony & Ingratitude
The story’s central irony: the benefactors become the accused. Lencho’s blind faith, while admirable, makes him incapable of seeing human goodness.
🌱 Poverty & Desperation
The story sensitively portrays how one natural disaster can push a hardworking farming family to the brink of starvation.
✉️ Communication & Distance
Lencho bridges the human-divine gap through a letter — a mundane act made extraordinary by the depth of his belief.
Deeper meaning: Rain represents income and survival for a farmer — every drop that falls is equivalent to money earned. The metaphor reveals how completely Lencho’s life revolves around the harvest. It also foreshadows the cruel irony ahead: what feels like wealth one moment is taken away the next.
Deeper meaning: By comparing the hailstorm to locusts (a biblical symbol of divine punishment), Lencho unknowingly frames nature’s wrath as something worse than a biblical plague. It emphasises the total, annihilating scale of his loss and sets up his desperate turn to God.
Deeper meaning: This is the moral pivot of the story. The postmaster — an educated, worldly man — recognises that Lencho possesses something rare and precious: complete, unquestioning trust in a higher power. His admiration implies that modern, rational people have lost this quality. The irony is that his admiration inspires him to become God’s instrument on earth.
Deeper meaning: This sentence underscores the extraordinary nature of Lencho’s faith. For him, God answering his letter was as certain as the sun rising. The negative construction (“not the slightest”) is used for emphasis — it amplifies just how total and unshakeable his belief is. It also sets up the dramatic contrast with his anger moments later.
Deeper meaning: This is the story’s sharpest irony. Lencho’s faith in God is so rigid that he cannot conceive of God making a mistake — so the shortage must be human treachery. He accuses the most charitable people in the story. This exposes a tension between blind faith and human perception: absolute belief can, paradoxically, make a person unable to recognise real human goodness.
What Makes This Story Deeply Ironic?
Irony occurs when reality is the opposite of what is expected. This story has multiple layers of irony:
| Word | Meaning | Used in Context |
|---|---|---|
| Crest | Top of a hill | “…sat on the crest of a low hill” |
| Draped | Covered (as with cloth) | “…field of ripe corn…draped in a curtain of rain” |
| Locusts | Crop-destroying migratory insects | “A plague of locusts would have left more” |
| Conscience | Inner sense of right and wrong | “…see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience” |
| Amiable | Friendly and pleasant | “The postmaster — a fat, amiable fellow” |
| Peso | Currency of Latin American countries | “I need a hundred pesos…” |
| Contentment | Satisfaction | “…the contentment of a man who has performed a good deed” |
| Solitary | Alone; isolated | “…that solitary house in the middle of the valley” |
| Downpour | Heavy rainfall | “The only thing the earth needed was a downpour” |
| Hailstones | Small balls of ice falling like rain | “…very large hailstones began to fall” |
| Object / Subject | Metaphor Used | Quality Compared |
|---|---|---|
| Clouds | “Huge mountains of clouds” | The massive, towering size of the approaching storm clouds |
| Raindrops | “New coins” (ten cent pieces, fives) | Rain = money/wealth for a farmer; each drop promises harvest income |
| Hailstones | “Frozen pearls” / “new silver coins” | The round, shiny, bright appearance of hailstones; bitter irony — they look like coins but destroy rather than provide wealth |
| Locusts | “A plague” (epidemic metaphor) | The rapid, total, indiscriminate destruction — spreading like a disease |
| Lencho | “An ox of a man” | Describes his large build and immense capacity for physical labour; he works tirelessly like a beast of burden |
| The destroyed field | “White as if covered with salt” | The bleached, barren landscape after hail — salt symbolises sterility and death of the earth |
Non-Defining Relative Clauses
A non-defining relative clause adds extra information about a noun that is already clearly identified. It is set off by commas (or dashes) and uses relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which.
💡 Note: These clauses are non-defining because we already know which Lencho or woman is being referred to. The clause is additional information, not identification.
Using Negatives for Emphasis
Negative words (no, not, nothing) can be used to intensify an idea rather than simply negate it.
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