SIN DOLOR

The short story Sin Dolor by T. Coraghessan Boyle appeared in the October 15, 2007 issue of the New Yorker. T.C. Boyle has written over sixty short stories and nineteen novels. He has won many awards, and is currently a professor of English at the University of Southern California, and lives with his wive and three children.

"Sin Dolor" is a story about a young boy named Damaso who can not feel pain, and the people in his life, a doctor and his family, who want to use him. The doctor takes care of him, plays with him, watches him, but ultimately wants to use him for medical purposes. Because of his bizarre condition, his father uses him as a show to make money. He forces Damaso to burn and cut himself in font of an audience. Because Damaso does not feel pain, he feels that he should do this for his family and his father, because he owes them that much as they gave him life. The doctor, in the beginning seems to want to use Damaso just as the father ends up doing in the end. After the doctor sees Damaso and his father in front of the crowd, he realizes that Damaso is a person with feelings too.

The doctor tries to make himself look like a better person than the father, when in fact, he had the same intention. Maybe not quite as extreme, but he wanted to use Damaso’s condition for his own benefit. This story shows the change and realization of this doctor from being bored and thinking he has seen it all, to realizing all the people he treats have true problems, and are real people.