h the women at Rosies House. He refuses the offer and affirms that he will preserve his innocence in order to become a priest in the holy catholic faith. His brothers mock him. They try to tell him that in being a man and the son of a vaquero his need for bodily pleasure will become stronger. Here is where I believe Tony accepts the destiny that his mother supplies for him as a man of god, but again his faith in this religion fails. He feels that his catechism will protect him from being corrupted and that god will reveal himself during this ceremonial rite-but nothing happens. He thought that when he partakes in this ceremony all will be revealed to him, but it is not.Furthermore, the golden carp is also a in a form a religion. He believes the myth of the golden carp and that it is sacred because it saved mankind. Tony and Cico go to a thicket where the carp emerges from under the water. There it is explained of the story of the carp and even more importantly another belief that Tony holds important. The lakes are remnant of when at one times the sea covered the land and the cycle of the sea rising again will be resultant of the sins of the people weighing down the land and causing it to collapse. For a final time, another one of the values he set for himself was destroyed upon the death of Florence in the water before they could inform him about the religion associated in the Carp. A childhood myth is destroyed and all of the religions and beliefs hat Tony has chosen to believe have been destroyed. Cico and Tony both know Florence is gone forever because he had no religion or belief that would save his soul.In a dream all of this is foreshadowed (chapter 14), god refuses to grant Andrew pardon from eternity in hell, a mob comes after Ultima, the carp is eaten and a new world forms. There is no coincidence that all of this happened in the same dream or that the occurrences in the novel are parallel to the events that actua...
