Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya - Book Report/Review Example

Bless Me, Ultima Order No.213856 April 2008-04-02 TOPIC: Critics have pointed out that Antonio reaches maturity by the end of Bless Me, Ultima. Providing ample textual support, please discuss Antonio’s character development in the novel. Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anayas, Bless Me, Ultima (1972) tells the story of the life of a young boy, Antonio, living in New Mexico during World War II. It is the story of Antonio who is exposed to various lifestyles and views of different people but at the end chooses his own beliefs and views to confront the world. Antonio, in the novel is a young boy who on his journey towards maturity discovers the dreadful evils that exist in this world. In the beginning of the novel Antonio Marez is seven years old living with his family in a small town? His three brothers are away at war. His mother Maria and father Gabriel are very different by nature. Their philosophies too are different. They are almost contradictory. His father coming from a family of cowboys wants Antonio to follow this tradition and live in the open plains of Ilanos. His mother comes from a farming family and is a staunch catholic. She wants Antonio to go to school and become a priest. Meanwhile, Ultima, an elderly folk healer comes to live with them. Antonio forms a strong bond with her and spends some good times gathering herbs with her. This is what he had to say on meeting her for the first time "She took my hand, and I felt the power of a whirlwind sweep around me. Her eyes swept the surrounding hills and through them I saw for the first time the wild beauty of our hills and the magic of the green river" (Bless Me, Ultima, p12). It is she who teaches him that each person has the right to choose how one wants to live. He must make his own choice. At the end of the novel the author Anaya suggests that one should draw lessons from different cultural traditions and form an identity that is acceptable to oneself. Antonio with the help of Ultima does just that. Antonio grows physically, emotionally and intellectually through the novel. As you go through the novel one can see Antonio grow physically. Antonio is so tiny in the beginning of the novel that one thinks he can be knocked down by the wind. That he has grown in size is evident in the remarks of Antonios brothers when they come home from the war "Hey Toni, how are you? Man youre big!" Antonio matures emotionally. In the beginning Antonio runs away from the death of Lupito because he might get into trouble. He is afraid of his parents and does not want to get into trouble like any seven-year-old boy. When Narciso, a good friend, dies, he stays back to bless him and even though he is scared and hesitates initially, finally ends up blessing Narciso. At the end of the novel on Ultimas death you see Antonio taking full control over his mother. Antonio takes charge of the situation and in the process reacts and responds like a man. Antonio matures intellectually in the novel. Antonio is enthusiastic about learning how to read and write. He knows many things that an average nine year old does not know. He knows that the owl is Ultimas spirit "It was true that the owl was Ultimas spirit. It had come with Ultima, and as men brought evil to our hills the owl had hovered over us, protecting us." Violence plays an important role in the process of Antonios growing up. He comes across a great deal of violence in his surroundings. The first time is when he is a witness to the death of Lupito; a soldier is shot dead after he kills the sheriff. This incident and all other violent incidents that follow make him think about faith, death and sin, good and evil, punishment. He wonders how God can allow such things and begins to question Him. Again at the end of the novel, there is this incident of Antonio being chased by Tenorio, the father of the Trementino sisters. These sisters have died in mysterious circumstances. Tenorio thinks that it is Ultima’s magic that is responsible for their death and wants to take revenge in whatsoever way he can. He wants to kill Antonio and chases him. But Antonio escapes and Tenorio kills Ultima’s alter ego, her owl instead. Ultima is doomed to die when the owl dies, as the owl helps her in the spiritual world and is hence a part of her. On her deathbed Antonio asks Ultima to bless him. Ultima blesses him in the name of all that is good, strong and beautiful. It is Ultima’s death that symbolizes the start of Antonio’s manhood. Antonio faces opposing forces all the time and has to struggle against them. He makes a transition from a six-year-old boy to a grown up man. He has to undertake a journey to find answers to the many questions that trouble him. The truth that one has to lose innocence in order to gain maturity is one of the many lessons he learns while on this journey. For instance after witnessing the brutal death of Lupito he realizes that the world can be violent, even ruthless. The world to him is now no more the loving world he lived in until then. According to Camille Walker, "growing up is a process that is both emotional and mental in nature." Some of his experiences were violent like some of the deaths he witnesses, those of his friends, Narciso and Florence, while some were more spiritual and mystic like Ultimas healing of Antonios Uncle Lucas and his introduction to the Golden Carp. The Golden Carp in the novel symbolizes an alternative religion to the religion (Catholicism) Antonio is raised in. The golden carp is depicted as a god destined to rule when the humans who have sinned are destroyed. Antonio is at first apprehensive about acknowledging any other religion than his own. But the sheer beauty of it stuns him and he learns later that it can in fact help him in his attempt to study all the religious sources he comes across and use them to find answers to all his questions and seek an identity of his own. Camille Walker says "Despite the apparent differences in the nature of these experiences, each had an equally life changing effect on Antonio. Each played a role in stripping Antonio of his innocence, forcing him to question aspects of his life that he had never before doubted............ It is only after one loses his innocence, or gains knowledge and experience, that he is able to see life through his own eyes, to begin making decisions for himself." Apart from Ultima and his family, Antonios schoolmates and friends also play a significant role in Antonios development. According to Cordelia Candelaria (1984) it is "through them he conquers many of the familiar fears common to boyhood, as well as those specific to rural Chicanitos (young Chicanos) like him who are teased for packing tortillas and beans instead of white bread sandwiches for school lunch. Each boy has his special talent that adds to Antonios expanding repertoire of worldly knowledge and experience, an expansion that edges him outside the familys orbit even as it helps him better to understand his family." But as one finishes reading the novel it is very clear that it is Ultima who more than anyone else assists Antonio to attain maturity. In his difficult journey from childhood to innocence it is Ultima who guides him. Whereas his parents put pressure on him to choose between the two different heritages they belong she does not pressurize him. She teaches him to take his own decisions without waiting for help. She plays " the role of cultural mediator". She helps him to recognize and resolve the internal contradictions of their culture such as the rivalry of the Lunas and the Marez, the struggle of the good and he evil, innocence and experience, Jehovah and the Golden Carp. Ultima in a dream reveals to Antonio the totality of the opposing forces contained in his culture. Antonio sees in his dream a lake filled with rotting bodies of sinners. His mother, tells him that those baptized in the holy waters of the moon will be saved whereas His father links his baptism to the waters of the sea "The Golden Carp," which is a god of the water. Thus the dream reflects his conflict between a moral order and Christianity. In the end it is Ultima who solves the conflict by saying that both types of water flow into the sea: "The waters are one" (121) (Lamadrid, 1985). It is Ultima who teaches Antonio the importance of moral independence. She makes him aware that a single religion alone cannot answer all the difficult questions about life. Antonio believed that the answers could be found in Communion rituals. But Ultima makes him think for himself and seek answers and arrive at conclusions on his own. Rudolfo Anaya in Bless Me Ultima depicts the universal truth that to gain something you have to lose something. Antonio loses his innocence only to gain an identity of his own. Antonio, when he is seven is all innocence and naivety. This changes when Ultima comes into his life. Under her influence he embarks on a journey from innocence to maturity, from obscurity to being a person with purpose. In conclusion one can say" In the end the divisive issues in Tonys life, which first seem to threaten his sense of a cohesive identity, actually prove to be his tool for coming of age: they are the catalyst for self-discovery. In the first part of the novel, Tony believes that he must choose between all of the opposing forces, but in the end he comes to realize that he can — and must — blend elements, combine opposites, to become his own person. (Emily Riser, 2001) References 1.Anaya, Rudolfo. 1972/1994. Bless Me, Ultima. New York: Warner Books. 2. Candelaria Cordelia, 1989, "Rudolfo A. Anaya: Criticism," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 82: Chicano Writers, First Series, edited by Francisco A. Lomeli and Carl R. Shirley, Gale Research, pp. 24-35. 3. Lamadrid Enrique Myth as the Cognitive Process of Popular Culture in Rudolfo Anayas Bless Me, Ultima: The Dialectics of Knowledge Hispania, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), pp. 496-501 4. Riser Emily, (2001), Critical Essay on Bless Me, Ultima, in Novels for Students, The Gale Group 5. Walker Camille, Bless me, Ultima: Lessons in growing up Retrieved from http://www.helium.com/items/425999-grown-friend-crooned-cloudy Read More

He knows that the owl is Ultimas spirit "It was true that the owl was Ultimas spirit. It had come with Ultima, and as men brought evil to our hills the owl had hovered over us, protecting us." Violence plays an important role in the process of Antonios growing up. He comes across a great deal of violence in his surroundings. The first time is when he is a witness to the death of Lupito; a soldier is shot dead after he kills the sheriff. This incident and all other violent incidents that follow make him think about faith, death and sin, good and evil, punishment. He wonders how God can allow such things and begins to question Him. Again at the end of the novel, there is this incident of Antonio being chased by Tenorio, the father of the Trementino sisters. These sisters have died in mysterious circumstances. Tenorio thinks that it is Ultima’s magic that is responsible for their death and wants to take revenge in whatsoever way he can. He wants to kill Antonio and chases him. But Antonio escapes and Tenorio kills Ultima’s alter ego, her owl instead. Ultima is doomed to die when the owl dies, as the owl helps her in the spiritual world and is hence a part of her. On her deathbed Antonio asks Ultima to bless him. Ultima blesses him in the name of all that is good, strong and beautiful. It is Ultima’s death that symbolizes the start of Antonio’s manhood. Antonio faces opposing forces all the time and has to struggle against them. He makes a transition from a six-year-old boy to a grown up man. He has to undertake a journey to find answers to the many questions that trouble him. The truth that one has to lose innocence in order to gain maturity is one of the many lessons he learns while on this journey. For instance after witnessing the brutal death of Lupito he realizes that the world can be violent, even ruthless. The world to him is now no more the loving world he lived in until then. According to Camille Walker, "growing up is a process that is both emotional and mental in nature." Some of his experiences were violent like some of the deaths he witnesses, those of his friends, Narciso and Florence, while some were more spiritual and mystic like Ultimas healing of Antonios Uncle Lucas and his introduction to the Golden Carp. The Golden Carp in the novel symbolizes an alternative religion to the religion (Catholicism) Antonio is raised in. The golden carp is depicted as a god destined to rule when the humans who have sinned are destroyed. Antonio is at first apprehensive about acknowledging any other religion than his own. But the sheer beauty of it stuns him and he learns later that it can in fact help him in his attempt to study all the religious sources he comes across and use them to find answers to all his questions and seek an identity of his own. Camille Walker says "Despite the apparent differences in the nature of these experiences, each had an equally life changing effect on Antonio. Each played a role in stripping Antonio of his innocence, forcing him to question aspects of his life that he had never before doubted............ It is only after one loses his innocence, or gains knowledge and experience, that he is able to see life through his own eyes, to begin making decisions for himself." Apart from Ultima and his family, Antonios schoolmates and friends also play a significant role in Antonios development. According to Cordelia Candelaria (1984) it is "through them he conquers many of the familiar fears common to boyhood, as well as those specific to rural Chicanitos (young Chicanos) like him who are teased for packing tortillas and beans instead of white bread sandwiches for school lunch. Each boy has his special talent that adds to Antonios expanding repertoire of worldly knowledge and experience, an expansion that edges him outside the familys orbit even as it helps him better to understand his family." But as one finishes reading the novel it is very clear that it is Ultima who more than anyone else assists Antonio to attain maturity. Read More