Under the feet of Jesus

Estrella is a young girl that has to deal with the fact that her father left the family. She does not have to deal with the physical or verbal abuse of the father. But instead she has to deal with the question of why her father abandons her, and the family. She has several coming of ages in this story, but the one that sticks with me the most is her interactions with Alego. The way she cared and protected him while he was sick from the spray of the pesticides in the fields while picking fruit for them to see. Estrella’s position in the family is kind a unresolved, due to her always wondering if that women that’s all dress up is the one that her father ran off with. She also has to be the strength for the simple fact that Perfecto was in his mid-seventies, and was getting older and weaker by the day. She has to protect her younger siblings and also help to provide for the family.

I think that the barn fits in to the narrative because it seems that Estella finds comfort in the barn. A safe haven for her from the world of hard, long working days on the field. This is her protection and also a way of her keeping her youth still. That’s why she does not want Perfecto to destroy the barn as requested by the farmer. If they demolish the barn, then Estrella loses her child hood along with the destruction of it. The relationship she has with Petra is a strange one. Petra loves her and cares for her, but at the same time she is overwhelmed with the life she has and the long hours she has to do in order to provide for her family. Estella’s relationship with Perfecto is a defiant one. She hates him for being with her mother, she feels that he is too old and does not look at him as a father figure, but more as a person that is there to help guide next location to work the fields. Even though she knows he is a hard worker and very smart when it comes to fixing things, but he is worn down from the long hours and hard years on the field. But she can’t find it in her heart to love him.