Miguel Chico Character Analysis

Doubts. We all have them: fears, weaknesses, and insecurities. They both protect us and restrain us from reaching our potentials. Miguel Chico's doubts in his family, and their religion leave him unable or unwilling to connect to either of them, although he is drawn to both of them. The duality of Maria's great ability for joy and her refusal to experience it after becoming a Seventh Day Adventist distances Miguel Chico from both religion and his family. Miguel Chico is deeply attached to Maria as a child. She has always been a part of his life, so much that he "could not remember a time when Maria was not a part of the family (15).When Miguel Chico is a child, Maria plays with him, takes him to mass, praises him and scolds him. She practically raises him, and she has extraordinary influence over him. When she tells him his mother will die, he "believed Maria" (19). Miguel Chico trusts her completely, believing her through his fear. Maria is one of the most important figures in Miguel Chico's childhood, and he felt closer to her than possibly any other adult around him.
As a result, Maria's conversion and later, her departure have a strong negative effect on Miguel Chico.
When she becomes a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Maria "begins putting up her hair, giving her a severe look he [Miguel Chico] did not like, and he missed those mornings when she let her hair hang loosely on her waist and brushed or dried it in the sun, his head on her lap." (19). Although Maria is still there, to Miguel Chico, part of her is gone The fact that religion took away the Maria he knew is instilled in Miguel Chico, and he begins to question all forms of religion. He is devastated when she is sent away, feeling "an awful loneliness when he thought about her hair and her eyes" (20). He misses her, resents her, and feels guilty. Rather then openly missing Maria, he ignores her completely, taking no responsibility for the loss he is
experiencing. Subsequently, as an adult, Miguel Chico is distant from his family and religion. Miguel Chico's family sees him as separated "because he was still not married and seldom visited them in the desert" (4). His concept of family has been skewed by the loneliness he has experienced for years. He separates himself from his family and doesn't begin his own, preferring being alone to potential loss. Additionally, the church "he had renounced" (8) is clearly no longer a part of his life. The confusion of multiple, contradictory religions being pushed upon him as a child have made him prefer to participate in none. The religion that was simultaneously forbidden and urgently encouraged in his childhood, as well as the Roman Catholicism of his family he both now ignores completely. Maria's conversion to Seventh Day Adventism pushes Miguel Chico away from both his family and religion. His ideas of religion, family, and their connection make it easier to avoid all of them. For Miguel Chico, doubt in both his family and religion is an easier state of being. They are his fears, his insecurities, his weaknesses.