Essay Questions

What is the predominant literary device at play in the story?

“The No-Guitar Blues” is an excellent example of irony. The opening sentence sets up the narrative to move toward a resolution that creates a humor, suspense and a satisfying reversal of fortune that seems like a deux ex machina, but is actually subtly foreshadowed early in the story. All Fausto wants is a guitar and for a moment it seems like that desire will be fulfilled, only to have an inconvenient onset of conscience and ethics rip that chance away. One way of reading the ending is that the discovery of the guitarron is reward from God for doing the right thing. Another interpretation can view the mention of his family’s preference for more traditional conjunto music as foreshadowing the ending by ironically undercutting Fausto’s dismissal of his family as hating rock music in a reveal showing he is hardly the first member of his family to pursue an interest in learning how to play the guitar.

How might be the opening scene of the story be interpreted as a satirical parody of “invisible racism” in America?

Fausto is just one Latino boy watching American Bandstand the day Los Lobos introduced him to the potential for Hispanic culture to impact rock and roll. The scene cannot help but recall the images of an audience of screaming teenage girls in the audience the night the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and changed the course of rock music forever. While teenage girls most screamed, many teenage boys watching that night were moved to start learning how to play a guitar and form bands. The presentation of non-Anglo rock musicians on not just a nationally television show but one with the name “American” Bandstand is one of the most subtle critiques of invisible racism in the author’s entire canon, revealing the power that images diversity can have to inspire individuals who in turn inspire societal change.

Fausto’s name automatically links his story to the legendary tale of Faust who sold his soul to the devil for eternity in exchange for short-term wish fulfillment. Is there a devil in this story of temptation?

One might be tempted to assign the role of Mephistopheles—the Satanic agent who brokers the deal Faust signs—to the poor stray dog. It is Roger’s unexpected appearance while Fausto is enjoying an orange, after all, that stimulates him to forget about his unsuccessful bid to earn money by doing honest work. Another candidate for Satanic figure is American Pop Culture which fills poor kids across the country with unrealistic dreams of overnight fame and wealth by showcasing the very tiny fractional minority of those who manage to make the instant rock star dream a reality. The scene in the church were Fausto imagines the priest is directly confronting him with his the words in his sermon about how everyone is a sinner is perhaps the best clue to where the devil in this Faustian update really lies. Just as all the other mythic qualities of the legend have been updated to the 20th century, so has the conception of the tempter pushing the hard sale of instant gratification over all concerns. The rise of psychology in the 20th century did much to destroy or transform much of the figures of myth and in this story Soto suggests that perhaps Mephistopheles resided entirely within the mind of Faust all along. Rather than being an actual personified figure of the darker impulses of the human mind, he is now just a unreachable figure always lurking just beneath the conscious will, subverting the more rational drive to act morally.