Bless Me Ultima Research Paper

(P) This thought that Antonio has builds up the possibility that he will later form a deep connection and bond with the earth and nature.

When he lifts his hands into the air, instead of speaking to God to save his brothers, he speaks to the presence of the river. This shows that he will have some religion dilemmas between God and the Golden Carp. In his last dream, Antonio witnesses “Tenorio capture the night spirit of Ultima and murder it, and Ultima died in agony” (244). Soon after this dream, Tenorio kills Ultima’s owl. Antonio then understood that the owl is her living soul.

First, and probably most important are the three sources of understanding for Antonio. First, there is Ultima, who serves as a neutral source of understanding and comforter for Antonio. The next source of understanding for Antonio is God. Antonio constantly struggles to understand good and evil through the eyes of the Catholic God. The final source of

Antonio’s conflict is that both sides of his family are trying to have influence in the type of person Antonio will grow into.

Another example of Antonio's sense of development in good and evil is his home. It is means a lot to Antonio, because the people living in it makes him feel protected and provide warmth to him. When Tenorio and his men came to his house to take Ultima away, Antonio’s father "You walk on my land! That is my business" (Anaya 130). This make Antonio feel that he would be protected by the presence of his father., Gabriel. However, Antonio's mother made home very fond and ardent for him. She had always been affectionate towards him and would show him care. Most importantly, Ultima was the one who contributed to the goodness of Antonio's home. She made Antonio feel as though her presence filled the home with love and safety. It was Ultima who calmed Antonio down after he had seen Lupito die. Whenever he had a nightmare, Ultima would always be right beside to comfort Antonio and " could sleep again" (Anaya 34). Ultima's fearlessness against Tenorio and his three daughters made Antonio feel that he would be safe wherever Ultima was. Overall, the

Antonio has now seen that there is power in the river, and however most people would be scared of a threatening force and power, Antonio understands its true power. He already feels his connection to a power other than the religion that he currently practices. He discovers another power that he could believe in.

Antonio experienced. Throughout the story, Antonio was forced to transform from a boy to a man after the severity of tensions of opposites in his life caused him to question everything he had ever known. Antonio reflected upon battles of opinions in his own household, religious differences, and stepping outside of his cultural upbringing for the first time. When Antonio witnessed an extreme amount of death, the sight of the golden carp, and the magical healing powers of Ultima he began to question his Catholic roots and potential participation in the priesthood. When God failed to respond to Antonio 's consistent questioning, he was no longer

An important motif in “Bless Me, Ultima” are Antonio’s dreams. His dreams foreshadow major events and make him question his beliefs, especially revolving around

Characters: Ultima- An old Curandera who comes to spend her last days with Antonio and his family. She is Tony’s mentor and helps him to find the right path for his life.

Ultima is an old curandera, which means healer in spanish, who comes to El Puerto to live with the Marez family after she is left alone in the town of Las Pasturas. When she arrives and turns to greet him, Antonio feels awestruck. According to Antonio, he “felt the power of a whirlwind sweep around me (Anaya 12).” A series of events occur throughout the story which makes Antonio overprotective of La Ultima. For instance, when Antonio and Ultima go to his grandfather’s house to cure his uncle, “Some women bowed their heads, other made the sign of the cross (Anaya 104).” Crossing your forehead in front of someone who is helping your family is a sign of disrespect. I feel that if I were Antonio, I would feel very offended because Ultima is my friend and nobody should be disrespected in front of the people you care for the most. As Antonio grows, he finds himself questioning his religion and comes to accept that everything is not what it seems. For example, Antonio realizes that the people of the town can be very judgemental and will blindly follow anyone because they fear the unknown. Antonio has to deal with is brothers who are led astray by the prostitutes of the town and their unrealistic dreams. After the war ended, his brothers came back, but with different plans for themselves. They leave because they want to be free, but I believe that they chain

Ultima is one of the few who know that growing into manhood is a fact of life and she tells antonio “Life is filled with sadness when a boy grows to be a man. But as you grow into manhood you must not despair of life, but gather strength to sustain you-can you understand that.”(245). She knows of all the things antonio has experienced from the death of Lupito to the death of Narciso, he has been surrounded by despair and evil but in all the tragedy he has grown to be a stronger man and now he can sustain himself better and become a better man because of these life changing experiences. After Antonio's first catechism class he asked his father why there was evil in the world and his father responded with; Evil is just something we say to explain things we don't understand often times it's not evil at all but we don't know how else to explain it because we are frightened by it. His father explains to him that not everything is evil and we can't truly know what's evil and what's not because we use “evil” to describe something we don't understand. During the beginning of the book Tonys brothers Andrew, Eugene, and León were off fighting the war and when they finally return home one of the firsts things that Andrew says is “When I came back from the Army I felt it had changed. Everything seems smaller.”(143) everyone notices that they don't act the

In one encounter with Tenorio, Antonio recalls, “I thought he would attack Ultima, but his gnarled body only trembled with anger. He could not find the courage to touch her.” (Anaya 93). At this point in the novel, Ultima and Antonio go to Tenorio to attempt to reason with him about the sickness that had recently overcome Uncle Lucas, and to find out more about its connection to Tenorio’s daughters. After this encounter, Tenorio feels that Ultima has humiliated him and his children by insinuating that his daughters were witches, and thus his hatred for Ultima begins to form. While this hatred fuels his archetypical quest throughout the novel, Tenorio is still not desperate enough to kill Ultima

Throughout the book Antonio is introduced to many new ideas. The first is the experiences he has with Ultima. Ultima is a healer who learned

Religion is a cultural event that occurs in the life of the Lunas. Antonio’s mother brings that aspect with her when she marries with a man that has Marez blood. The presence of religion stays with Antonio throughout the course of the novel. It can easily be said that religion defines an enormous portion of who he is from the point of birth. He makes his best efforts to stay away from horrible experiences and put his thoughts out of anything that may make him doubts and God and heaven. But even for him it reaches to a point that he can’t bear with much more. But religion remains present even at home. While Antonio’s three older brothers, Andrew, Leon and Eugenio are away at war, Antonio and his family pray for them all the time and even when they have returned. They do this on a day to day basis to keep the presence of religion alive.

An evangelical church in Wittenberg, Germany celebrated the 500th year of the Protestant Reformation by unveiling a robot priest which greets users and releases blessings.