CBSE Class 10 English Chapter 1 A Letter to God Summary, Questions and Answers

CBSE NCERT Class 10 First Flight Chapter 1 - A Letter To God

-by G.L. Fuentes

A Letter to God Summary

The story, "A Letter to God" by G.L. Fuentes depicts unwavering faith of a farmer in God. It begins with a farmer, named Lencho expecting for a rain shower to in his field of corn. He is confident that his harvest is going to gave him huge profits. Some time later rainfall started,  but it turned into a hailstorm it starts destroying his entire crop field. Lencho’s soul was filled with sadness. When the storm had passed, he stood in the middle of the field and said to his sons, “A plague of locusts would have left more than this. The hail has left nothing.

This year we will have no corn.The family's survival was dependent on the year's produce. Lencho, having worked day and night at the field, he knew how to write and thus, he decided to write a letter to God explaining his situation and asking for help. He went to town to post his letter addressed "To God". The letter on being noticed by the postmaster, at first laughed him, but then motivated him want to do something for the farmer so as to keep his  belief alive. He contributes from his salary and collects money from his friends  who willingly contributed for an act of charity. To his dismay, he could only collect 70 pesos which he wrapped in an envelope to make it seem like a reply from the deity. On having found the letter, the writer (Lencho) is not at all shocked, but instead, he gets angry on finding that the amount is less than what he had expected he wanted 100 pesos but he gets only 70 pesos. He again writes a letter to God conveying his disappointment and distrust in the employees of the post office who he thought had stolen the remaining amount.

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A Letter to God Intext Question and Answers

Q1. What did Lencho hope for?

A. Lencho hoped for a rain shower for his crop field.

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

A. Lencho's crops were ready for harvest. Ad raindrops would helped in getting a better harvest, so Lencho compared them with new coins. 

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

A. Soon after the rainfall had begun, the wind became strong leading to a hailstorm. As a result of which, Lencho's crop fields got destroyed.

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

A. After hail stopped, Lencho's soul was filled with sadness. He was worried about lack of food for the coming year.

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

A. Lencho had faith in God. Thus, he decided to write a letter to God saying that he needed 100 pesos to sow his field again.

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Q7. What did the postmaster do then?

A. The postmaster first laughed. But then he was deeply moved by the writer's faith in God.  He did not want to shake his faith. So he decided to collect the money and send it to Lencho.

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

A. No, Lencho was not surprised to see the letter from God with money inside it.

Q9. What made him angry?

A. Lencho demanded  100 pesos but when he opened the letter he found only 70 pesos, he thought that the post office employees must have taken the remaining pesos.

Thinking About The Text

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

A. Lencho has immense faith in God. These lines are evident to this fact: "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'?

A. The postmaster did not want to shake the writer's faith in the almighty, and thus, out of virtuous intentions, decided to collect money for "an act of charity". He also signed the letter in the name of God to conceal his identity as he wanted Lencho to think it was actually a reply from God.

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

A. No, Lencho did not try to find out the sender because he was very optimistic about the existence of almighty and that, his letter is actually received and replied to, by God. It was his unshakeable faith that made him not question the identity of the sender.

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.)

A. Lencho thought that it is the postmaster or the employees of the post-office who had stolen his remaining amount, as is evident from his second letter to God where he requests the deity not to send money by mail next time. The irony here is that, it was actually the postmaster and the employees who had collected the money out of their clean intent to keep Lencho's faith intact, but are the ones who ended up getting blamed for stealing the 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.

Greedy, naive, stupid, ungrateful, Selfish, comical, unquestioning

A. No, it is hard to find people like Lencho in reality. Lencho is naive and unquestioning because of his lack of judgement about the actual physical existence of God. He did not question receiving an actual reply from the almighty. Also, he is ungrateful in some manner because on seeing 70 pesos, he is not happy but instead, complained about the missing 30 pesos.

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

A. The story "A Letter to God" depicts two types of conflicts; one between man and nature and the other among men themselves. In the beginning of the story, the farmer hopes for a rain shower for the benefit of his corn field. On actually receiving rain, he becomes overjoyed and starts thinking about all the profit that would come in. Not much later, his joy is turned into sorrow when the wind becomes strong leading to a hailstorm. This depicts the disagreement between man and nature wherein humans want the nature to act according to their aspirations. The second divergence arises when Lencho starts doubting the honesty of the post-office employees who actually helped him with the money anonymously. This is the conflict among men themselves, wherein, we are ready to trust in the idea of God's existence but we are not ready to trust each other.