The Character of Fausto in the No-Guitar Blues

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English 7 Period __

The Character of Fausto in “The No-Guitar Blues”

The main character in Gary Soto’s short story “The No-Good Blues” is a young boy named Fausto who lives in a city. He dreams about being a guitarist, but his family cannot afford to buy him a guitar. During the course of the story, he searches for ways to raise money to buy a guitar. Fausto often acts without thinking things through. However, when he does something wrong, his strong sense of right and wrong makes him find a way to make up for it.

Fausto has a bad habit of being thoughtless. When Fausto decides to earn the money to buy a guitar by mowing lawns, he acts before he thinks. He is partway down the street with the lawn mower before he remembers that it is winter and no lawns need mowing.

What Fausto does next also shows his habit of acting without thinking. He returns home and gets a rake, planning to ride his bike to a nicer part of town to look for work. However, he has not thought about the fact that his bike has two flat tires. Furthermore, as he rides off on his sister’s bike, he does not think about whether she may need it or how she will feel when she finds out he took the bike without asking.

Fausto’s greatest act of thoughtlessness comes when he tries to claim a reward he does not deserve. Fausto makes only twenty-five cents in three hours, but when a loose dog wanders up to him, he thinks of a way to make easy money. Because the dog looks healthy and is wearing a collar and tags, he thinks that it must belong to rich people. He decides to return the dog to its owners and tell them that he found it near the freeway. He figures they will be so grateful to him Lastname 2 for rescuing their dog that they will give him a reward. He does not stop to think about whether they will believe him or what he will do if they do not believe him.

Neither does Fausto think about how he will feel if the owners do accept his lie. The man and woman who own the dog are amazingly nice to him. They invite Fausto into their home, fix him a delicious snack, and they give him a reward of twenty dollars for bringing their dog home.

The way Fausto acts to his dishonest act shows his strong sense of right and wrong. Even as he is hatching his scheme, he feels bad about lying. When the man first offers him the money,

Fausto realizes that he is “in trouble…with himself,” and says, “I can’t take that.” When the man insists he deserves the reward, Fausto says, “No I don’t.’ After Fausto leaves the people’s house, he feels like “begging them to take the money back.” He walks away “like a zombie,” saying to himself, “Oh, man, I shouldn’t have lied.” He feels like running to church to confess, but it is too late that day.

As further evidence of Fausto’s good character, the next morning he gets up and goes to church without being told to go. When he gets there, he worries about whether the priest knows what he did. Also, he cannot concentrate on the service because he keeps remembering how nice the dog’s owners were to him. His conscience bothers him so much that he donated the twenty dollars to the church. He even adds the quarter he honestly earned the day before.

After church, Fausto feels “cleared of wrongdoing” and “happy.” His strong sense of right and wrong has helped him find a way to make up for the situation he got himself into by not thinking things through. Although his choice is difficult, Fausto’s final action is rewarded when he receives his grandfather’s guitarron. He will probably be much happier with this guitar than he would have been with the guitar bought through dishonesty. Lastname 3

Work Cited

Soto, Gary. “The No-Guitar Blues.” Literature and Language Arts: First Course. Eds. Kylene

Beers and Lee Odell. Austin, Texas: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2003.537-541.