Literature 4

Bless Me, Ultima
By: Rudolfo A. Anaya

1. When Antonio is young, the old healer Ultima comes to stay with him and his family in their small house in Guadalupe, New Mexico. The family has taken in Ultima out of a respect for her  healing powers, her knowledge of plant lore, and her long use of folk magic in service of the community. Though they have great respect for Ultima’s spirituality, the family, especially Antonio’s mother, is devoutly Catholic. When he was born, Ultima served as his midwife and buried his afterbirth. As a result, it is now thought that she alone knows what lies in Antonio’s future.  One night, Antonio's innocence is threatened when he witnesses the death of Lupito, a soldier who recently returned from World War II. Lupito is shot to death by a mob after he kills the sheriff in a moment of post-traumatic delirium. After seeing Lupito’s death, Antonio begins to wonder about sin, death, and hell. Antonio walks to church with Ultima the next morning, and she tells him that each person must make his or her own moral choices, must choose a set of values to use to understand the world. Antonio goes to visit the garden of Narciso, the town drunk. Afterward, they go to see the golden carp. Antonio’s friend Cico tells him that only true believers can see the carp. Cico says that if the people cannot stop sinning, the carp will flood the land to rid it of humanity’s evil. Antonio wishes sadly that there were a god of forgiveness. He idolizes the Virgin Mary because of the ideal of forgiveness that she represents.Ultima continues to teach Antonio lessons about moral independence and goodness. He goes with her to dispel the ghosts in a haunted house, and they discover that Tenorio has caused the haunting in order to take revenge on the man who owns the house. Ultima drives away the ghosts, but when the second of Tenorio’s daughters falls ill, he begins to regard Ultima with even more hatred. Not long after that, Florence drowns while swimming in the river. Ultima sends Antonio to stay with his uncles to recover from the shock, and he spends a happy summer with them, learning how to tend a farm. On the journey there, Antonio and Gabriel talk about some of the questions that have been bothering Antonio, and Gabriel tells him that he will end the conflict between the Márezes and the Lunas and let Antonio choose his own destiny. As Antonio makes his way from his uncles’ fields to his grandfather’s house one day toward the end of the summer, a murderous Tenorio chases after him. Antonio escapes, but Tenorio shoots Ultima’s owl. When the owl dies, Ultima is doomed to die as well because the owl is her spiritual familiar, or guardian. Antonio sits with her at her bedside and buries the owl as she requests after she dies.
2. The theme of this book is the importance of independence. Antonio’s progress toward moral independence is the main marker of his maturity and development throughout the novel. Antonio’s struggle to reconcile the complexities of his experience with his religion leads him to conclude that he must make his own decisions. He becomes increasingly frustrated by the failure of the church to explain the most pressing questions about morality and human experience. Ultima acts as Antonio’s guide as he learns the importance of moral independence. Ultima teaches him that the most difficult questions about life can never be answered entirely by a  single religion or cultural tradition. Antonio has questions about evil, forgiveness, truth, and the soul, questions he can answer only for himself. Antonio once believed that the Communion ritual would answer all his questions, but Ultima teaches him that he must think for himself and arrive at his own conclusions.
3. For the most part, the narrator’s tone is serious and lyrical, with simple, poetic language used to describe Antonio’s struggles. The tone of the novel generally matches the mood of its main character. "The orange of the golden carp appeared at the edge of the pond. . . . We watched in silence at the beauty and grandeur of the great fish. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw Cico hold his hand to his breast as the golden carp glided by. Then with a switch of his powerful tail the golden carp disappeared into the shadowy water under the thicket." "God! Why did Lupito die? Why do you allow the evil of the Trementinas? Why did you allow Narciso to be murdered when he was doing good? . . . A thousand questions pushed through my mind, but the Voice within me did not answer. . . . The mass was ending, the fleeting mystery was already vanishing."
4. There are symbols used in this book one being Golden Carp. The golden carp represents a magical religious order not connected to Catholicism. The golden carp legend offers its own brand of wisdom, comfort, and moral guidance. There is also Ultima's owl represents represents her life force and the power of her religious mysticism. The owl sings softly outside Antonio’s window at night. Its song symbolizes Ultima’s comforting presence in Antonio’s life and the protective power of her magic. At the end of the novel, Tenorio’s killing of the owl literally destroys Ultima’s life force and leads very quickly to her death. Antonio equates Ultima with the owl when he buries it, he says that he is really burying Ultima. One of the motifs is family The recurring presence of various family relationships uncles, siblings, and parents, especially provides a subtle commentary on the nature of identity and ultimately underscores the book’s main theme of moral independence. Many of Antonio’s family members seek to define his future, especially his uncles, who argue about whether he will become a priest or a vaquero. Antonio looks to other members of his family to help define his identity, especially when he tries to model himself after Andrew, his older brother. In the end, Antonio must learn to make his own choices, drawing from the wisdom and experience of his family, but not being limited by their wishes and perspective.