Essay on Bless Me Ultima

This sets up the initial conflict for Antonio, he wants to believe in his mother's God, but at the same time he finds conviction and truth in what Samuel is telling him about the golden carp god. Furthermore, while Antonio is supposed to be praying to God he says, "There wasn't time to discover Him, like I could do when I sat on the creek bank and watched the golden carp swim in the sun-filtered waters" (233). I think this shows that Antonio feels a deeper connection to nature and the golden carp than he does to God and traditional values. He is more like Ultima, than like either one of his parents. The golden carp offer Antonio a way of thinking that is free and unstructured, unlike that of Catholicism.

Death is abstruse but can make one savvy. The way one thinks may be shifted by an incident, bringing them to a point where they feel uncertain about what they believe in. All the purity and sin that comes with this life is what brings them to become equivocal and controversial as to what is right and wrong. Thoughts of doubt may not be cleared up, but it will allow one to find a path they pertain to. A novel, Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya relates to this concept in the sense that the main character Antonio Márez is conflicted due to the deaths he encounters which alters his beliefs.

As time passes within the novel, Antonio continues to dwell on the growing anguish that his parents have unknowingly placed on him. He is lost within a void of confusion and uncertainty, melding together to create a source for which his terrors feast on. After learning of the Golden Carp from Cico,Antonio later dreams of the Golden Carp which sets the backdrop for what occurs within the dream. His mother and father argue over where he was baptized and continue to press that one is right and the other is wrong. “Mother… you are saved! We are all saved! Yes, my

In addition, Tony’s mother Maria was a staunch catholic who desperately wanted her youngest son to become a priest to a small community of farmers. Her roots were in farming and living off the land (having a mutually benefiting relationship-being connected to the land). She prayed during times of family toil constantly. Tony has a dream after his brothers beckon him into a whorehouse to sleep with the women at “Rosie’s 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.

The golden carp symbolizes the pagan religion which ties into christianity. At the river, Cico is talking to Antonio and exclaims, “When the gods had turned the people into carp, the one kind god who loved the people

An example of magical realism in the story is that of the Golden Carp. While many people would not consider it real, the concept is similar to the idea of god. The Golden Carp is something that Antonio considers magical and fascinating but is reluctant to believe in. At the bottom of page 113 Antonio says, “The Golden Carp came. Cico pointed and I turned to where the stream came out of the dark grotto of overhanging tree branches. At first I thought I must be dreaming.” (Anaya, Page #113). Even though he was enthusiastic to view the Golden Carp, once he saw it he had a hard time accepting its physical existence.

He kills Narciso in cold blood. He is a true coward and he hides behind others instead of facing those who he seeks to fight.

Florence wasn’t all that religious but he went to church anyways just to hang with his friends. Animal, I thought. Were the fish of the golden carp happier than we were? Was the golden carp a better God? (Pg. 197). This was Tony and Antonio talking about god and how he wasn’t reliable that it wasn’t bad to have knowledge outside of religion. Florence is just a small kid and he believes that isn’t looking over him. He does not believe in God because he lost his parents at an early age so he thinks that God is to blame for all of his misfortunes. Florence was found at the river where the carp swam floating motionless he had drowned. My attention was centered on the northern blue skies. There two hawks circled as they rode the warm air currents of the afternoon. They glided earthward in the wide, concentric circles. (Pg. 241). These hawks could symbolize the freedom, that maybe Florence was finally free from his torment that he has while he was alive. Florence was also a child when he died so he was pure of heart he did not commit mortal

	In Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, the author uses Tony's dreams as a way of displaying various symbols. Three symbols that are used often are weather, water, and the Golden Carp. Weather is used to represent conflict. Water represents cleansing, and rejuvenation. The Golden Carp symbolizes religion and Tony's beliefs. Because dreams are a not an exact mirror of reality, they become the perfect tool for introducing symbolism. The author uses the dream as a way to access the recurring themes of the book.

Antonio learns about the golden carp from Cico, a friend of his. According to Cico, the golden carp was once a god who loved the people of Antonio's town, Guadalupe. The people were not allowed to fish for the brown carp that lived in the river that flowed around the town. These fish were sacred to the gods. However, because of a drought and no food, the people had to eat the carp to survive. This angered the gods. They wanted to punish all the people by death but "they relented from killing the people. Instead, they turned the people into carp and made them live forever in the waters of the river-". The god who loved the people wished to become a carp like them to protect them from the dangers of the river. The gods agreed and "because he was a god they made him very big and colored him the color gold". Antonio cannot believe there is a new god and seeks answers from Ultima. Ultima is pleased that he has learned so much, but says she cannot tell him what to believe for he must decide for himself. The Golden Carp represents all the questions Tony has about religion and morality. Tony’s confusion is due to conflicting forces in both these aspects of life. When Cico first introduces the Carp to Tony, he is forced to make a tough decision, “Do you believe the Golden Carp is a god?” which he skillfully evades until he has the information he wants to make his decision. After the emergence of the Carp, Tony begins to question his

For example, when the Trementina sisters who are witches put a curse on uncle Lucas. “ They were very angry to be caught performing their devilish mass...They rolled on the ground like wounded animals until he lowered the cross. They picked themselves up until they fled into the darkness, cursing him as the went”(88). This shows magical realism because the witches in the story are seen as ordinary by the townspeople and the marez family who only seeks to cure Lucas instead of questioning how it is possible for them to be witches and to have cursed him because it is culturally accepted. Another scenario in Bless Me, Ultima that supports this element is Ultima's power to heal using her knowledge as a curandera. She eventually is able to Lift the curse from uncle Lucas by giving him remedies that she makes from herbs. Antonio described,”she mixed kerosene and water and carefully warmed the bowl...she took many herbs and roots”(97). Ultima says,”the curse of the trementinas shall bend and fly in their faces”(97).Similarly, Tim burton in his film Big Fish uses

All throughout the book there is talk of God and the Virgin. God’s presence ranges from being blessed be Ultima to attending church school after their school. Despite Tony’s supposed great relationship with God, he continues to question his word and existence. Since Tony has been witness to much evil, he turns to God for answers. He believed that after he completed his church school and went to confession that the answers would just flood into him. As we know the exact opposite thing happened. Tony thought he was praying for something where the receiver of the messages either ignored him or seized to exist. So, over time Antonio started to question God’s existence more and more due to the fact that he didn’t have direct contact with him. This is also known as unfaithfulness. Once Cico showed Tony the Golden Carp, Tony’s world slightly changed. He was happy to actually be able to have some sort of relationship with a God. Tony was obviously never taught that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. So, Tony has faith in something he can see. Once again he thinks of the idea of trying to believe in both Gods but quickly shoots it down. The Golden Carp and God were used to show how the book was trying to explain how unfaithful the world was and still is. I believe the main thing we should take away from this is just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not

   Bless Me Ultima and Baby of the Family serve as the 'coming of age' stories of two minority children. Rudolfo Anaya and Tina McElory Ansa skillfully reveal the richness, diversity, and conflicts that can exist within the Hispanic-American and African-American cultures primarily through the dream sequences in each novel. Dreams are the mechanism used in each work to magnify the individual experiences and conflicts Tony and Lena encounter. In addition and perhaps, more importantly, Tony and Lena deal with ambivalence and find their voices not only through the relationships with other characters, but through the resolution of their dreams.

Bless Me, Ultima is a story about the maturation of a young Mexican-American boy, Antonio M’arez, struggling with many questions about his destiny, life and death, and good and evil. Ultima who comes to live with Antonio becomes his caretaker and his teacher. Antonio learns there are powers in the world that differ from his beliefs in the Catholic faith. Ultima teaches Antonio “that the tragic consequences of life can be overcome by the magical strength that resides in the human heart”. Ultima shows Antonio how to experience the magic of life with his heart and not with his eyes. For the first time, he sees the river not as something to be feared but as a source of life, “I had been afraid of the awful

to play on Tony's mind so that he could not keep his promise not to