A Letter to God Summary | G.L. Fuentes | First Flight | English |

A Letter to God Summary | Class 10 | G.L. Fuentes | First Flight | English |

Summary of A Letter to God

A letter to God Class 10 by G.L. Fuentes : This chapter revolves around a poor farmer named Lencho, the protagonist of this chapter. He is a poor farmer and the only bread-earner of his whole family who has immense faith in God. He lives in a little and lonely house, which is situated at the foot of a low hill in the valley, with his wife and sons.

Being a laborious farmer, he has been eagerly waiting for a good rain for his fields and for a decent harvest this year. But, on the contrary, he has to face a lot of music when the normal rain gets converted into a hailstorm and destroys his whole crop out and out. Having been disappointed and ruined, he finds no other way except writing a letter to God seeking help of 100 pesos so that he and his family can survive such a difficult upcoming time. He writes a letter to God wherein he asks for God’s help with some money.

When the postman finds a letter in the box which is addressed to God, he rushes to the postmaster and shows him the letter. On opening up, it is found that a poor farmer (Lencho) is in dire need of money. Seeing the gravity of the situation, the postmaster decides to help him with some of the money. As a result, he requests all his colleagues to do the charity as much as possible to help the needy farmer for this noble cause but all he manages to arrange is 70 pesos for him. He sends all the collected money to Lencho putting it in an envelope, keeping in mind, that it would do him some good and make his and his family’s life somewhat better.

After a few days, the postmaster receives another letter from Lencho, addressed to God, wherein the poor farmer complains to God against the working style of people at the post office calling them ‘A bunch of crooks’ and accusing them of taking out some money from the letter sent by him. Besides, he requests God to send him the money directly from the next time rather than sending it through the corrupt employees of the post office. The postmaster feels very sad when he goes through the painful words of Lencho one by one and realizes that despite helping him, they get nothing but a blame for stealing his money which they did not.

Had Lencho thought optimistically, he would have realised that the money he received was actually sent by someone else not the God. But, his pessimism disappoints the readers in the end of the story and compels them to lose faith in humans. One should not forget that humanity still prevails provided that one has a firm belief in it.

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Textual Questions of A Letter to God

Q1. What did Lencho hope for?

Ans. Lencho hoped for a good rain pour for having better crops.

Q2.  Why did Lencho say the raindrops were like ‘new coins’?

Ans. After the rain, things were going well for Lencho. He had a lot of confidence that his harvest would make him lots of money. This meant he thought the droplets were like coins; the bigger ones equal to 10 pesos and smaller ones equal to 5 pesos.

Q3. How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho’s fields?

Ans. The rain started and then there was a strong wind, which led to hailstorm. Consequently, Lencho’s crop fields got dried out, the trees lost their leaves, and the flowers fell.

Q4. What were Lencho’s feelings when the hail stopped?

Ans. Lencho was extremely demoralised and his soul was filled with irreparable unhappiness.

Q5. Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?

Ans. Lencho had faith in God. He wrote a letter to God and asked for 100 pesos so he could survive and grow his crops more.

Q6. Who read the letter?

Ans. A postman of the post office went through the letter written by Lencho.

Q7. What did the postmaster do then?

Ans. Lencho had a lot of faith in God which startled the postmaster. The postmaster was amazed and wanted to help him as much as possible with the help of his colleagues.

Q8. Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?

Ans. Lencho was least surprised when he saw the letter because this is what he had expected. He was angry that the amount of money that God gave him was less than what he had asked for.

Q9. What made him angry?

Ans. Lencho was angry that the amount of money that God gave him was less than what he had asked for. He thought some of the amount was stolen by the postmaster and his colleagues.

Q10. Who does Lencho have complete faith in? Which sentences in the story tell you this?

Ans. Lencho had faith in God. These lines from the text make it clear : “Lencho showed not the slightest surprise on seeing the money; such was his confidence – but he became angry when he counted the money. God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested.“

Q11. Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter ‘God’?

Ans. The postmaster did not want the writer to lose faith in God and wanted to help them. He decided to collect money for charity and signed the letter with “God” in order to make Lencho would believe it was God’s reply.

Q12. Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?

Ans. Lencho did not try to find out the sender because he was very hopeful about the existence of God. He also believed that his letter would be received by God and replied to. There was no way that he could have doubted this.

Q13. Who does Lencho think has taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation? (Remember that the irony of a situation is an unexpected aspect of it. An ironic situation is strange or amusing because it is the opposite of what is expected.)

Ans. Lencho thought that the postmaster or the employees of the post office had stolen his remaining amount. This is because he said in his second letter to God that he hoped it would not be sent by mail again. But, it was actually these people who collected the money to keep Lencho’s faith intact, but they are blamed for stealing this missing amount.

Q 14. Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is? You may select appropriate words from the box to answer the question.

Ans. Lencho is naive and unquestioning because he doesn’t know what’s going on. He didn’t question the God he received a reply from. Lencho is also ungrateful, because when he saw 70 pesos, he was unhappy because 30 pesos were missing.

Q15. There are two kinds of conflict in the story: between humans and nature, and between humans themselves. How are these conflicts illustrated?

Ans. The story about A Letter to God has two types of conflicts. One is between people and nature. If it works according to people, the people are happy whereas if it goes against them they sink in gloom. As we see in this chapter, when it rain he gets excited and begins calculating his profits because the rain could makes his corn grow better. The other conflict is between people themselves. For example, one person wishes for rain but another wants a storm instead. The second conflict comes into view when Lencho starts doubting the integrity of the postmaster and other employees who had helped him with the money to compensate his loss. On one hand, people are ready to what has God has planned for them whereas they don’t trust other men on the other hand. 

Important Questions/Answers of A Letter to God

Q1. What was Lencho by profession? What was his chief problem?

Ans. Lencho was a farmer by profession. He was extremely hard working and living on the crest of a low hill. He had been waiting for a good rain for long in order to have a good harvest but there was no rain. When it started raining, all his dreams were shattered by a gigantic hailstorm destroying all his crops. All that made him sink in gloom.

Q2. What made Lencho write a letter to God?

Ans. Lencho’s entire crop had been damaged by a massive hailstorm. He had no other option left except praying to God and seeking help. Therefore, he decided to pen down a letter to God asking for some money to run his livelihood and meet all the expectations of his family.

Q3. What made the postmaster help Lencho?

Ans. The postmaster was a kind-hearted man. When he found a letter from Lencho that was addressed to God, he got emotional to see latter’s faith in God. His heart melted and he decided to help him everything he had. But all he managed to collect was seventy pesos for him. Having collected the amount, he sent a letter to him on behalf of God.

Q4. How much amount did Lencho ask for? Why did he not get all the money?

Ans. Lencho’s crops had been ruined for which he had asked for 100 pesos from God. He thought all his problems would get washed away if he got the demanded amount. But, on the contrary, he got only 70 pesos.

Q5. Why did Lencho not want the money to be sent through mail?

Ans. When Lencho received 70 pesos instead of receiving 100 pesos, he started doubting the integrity of the postmaster and the people working there for stealing his money from his envelope. Therefore, he sent another letter to God requesting him not to send rest of the money through mail.

Q6. Why did Lencho compare the rain drops to new coins?

Ans. Lencho was in dire need of rain for his crops were on the verge of being ruined. When it rained, he got so excited that he compared it with the new coins falling down from the sky. He started valuing them as per the sizes of the drops.

Q7. Write a brief character sketch of Lencho in about 200 words.

Ans. Lencho was a farmer by profession. He was extremely hard working and living on the crest of a low hill. He had been waiting for a good rain for long in order to have a good harvest but there was no rain. Soon, it started raining, he got excited but all his dreams were shattered when the rain transformed itself into a gigantic hailstorm destroying all his crops. All that made him sink in gloom. He had no other option left except praying to God and seeking help. Therefore, he decided to pen down a letter to God asking for some money to run his livelihood and meet all the expectations of his family. When the postmaster found a letter from Lencho that was addressed to God, he got emotional to see latter’s faith in God. His heart melted and he decided to help him everything he had. But all he managed to collect was seventy pesos for him. Having collected the amount, he sent a letter to him on behalf of God. When Lencho received 70 pesos instead of receiving 100 pesos, he started doubting the integrity of the postmaster and the people working there for stealing his money from his envelope. Therefore, he sent another letter to God requesting him not to send rest of the money through mail. Besides, he called all of them a bunch of crooks who had stolen his rest of the money sent by the God.

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