Examples Of Dialectical Journal For Bless Me Ultima

Ultima goes to stay with Antonio Marez, a young boy who lives in the llano with his parents, two sister, and three brothers. This is because

Ultima helps Antonio with his anxiety and uncertainties throughout the book. After ultima goes to live with the marez family is when Antonio becomes able to be independent and move away from the responsibilities he has in his family. Ultima shows him that he has to think for himself and make his own decisions and conclusions. In the book Ultima tells Antonio “You are growing, and growth is change. Accept the change, make it part of your strength.” This quote from the book shows the relationship between Ultima and Antonio, it also shows her helping Antonio with his uncertainties and telling him to be and stay strong while he is

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

When tenorio wishes Ultima and Antonio death he mentions something that catches Antonio off guard the novel states, “It was when he said that the owl was the spirit of Ultima that everything I had ever known about Ultima and her bird seemed to make sense. The owl was a protective spirit...The owl was her soul!” (Anaya,255). The symbolization of the owl demonstrates how Anaya uses the tradition of Catholicism to show that Antonio becomes more independent, because he chooses to accept the fact that he thinks Ultima has a greater

Ultima helped guide young Antonio with her wisdom. As Antonio feels the loss of his

As the story unfolds, Antonio is struggling with his own mind for an answer to the sinful nature of man and the forgiveness of his God. Under the guidance of Ultima, he learns that he must decide for himself the moral basis of life and live by it so as not to drown in the world of sin he lives in. The theme is expressed when Antonio excitedly enters the church for his first communion, thinking it will bring him an understanding of that that has been troubling his mind, ”A thousand questions pushed through my mind, but the voice within me did not answer. There was only silence.” When he feels nothing at the end of the communion and wonders why his God would not answer his questions, he begins to learn that he cannot rely on his church or his priest to provide him with what he needs to define morality. He learns that moral independence is important and as he fulfilled Ultima’s dying wish, he then understood and forged his own moral independence. Another theme is that culture and blood have a great influence of one’s identity. It can be easily seen that his family’s religious ways and the pride they carry in their blood is greatly troubling Antonio on his road to finding his moral

Ultima is the towns “curandera” who is staying with the family and everyone in town thinks she is a bad witch. Antonio seems to adapt to Ultima quite quickly soon after she arrives and starts learning her way. He is seen looking up to her as if she were a mother figure and, at some point, as if she was the Virgin de Guadalupe. Antonio often finds comfort in Ultima and confides in her regarding his faith. Antonio then witnesses Ultima save his uncle when the evil twitches had done some bad witchcraft on him that nearly led him to death. Antonio then begins to see that the God he was raised to believe in is not the only one in power. Ultima comes in to place and teaches Antonio that he doesn’t have to pick one belief, rather he can identify with a little bit of both. Before Ultima’s death in the book, Antonio asks Ultima for her blessing and she is more than happy to do so because she did everything she could have to prepare him mentally to find the real

As haunting as Antonio finds the owl, it is Lupito’s death that shows him his first horror in life. He sees the blood in the river, the blood on Lupito, and throughout the whole scene he hears the ever-present “lapping of the river” (20), as if the river was lapping up Lupito’s blood and his life like a thirsty dog. He is faced with, again, the difficult division between two identities: man and

In this book some of the examples of conflict Antonio faces include his innocence versus the people in his life, Antonio’s reality versus the dreams he has, and his faith, whether it be to the Golden Carp, God, or the magic of Ultima. In this novel, one conflict is Antonio’s innocence versus some people that have affected his life in major ways. For example, Antonio’s mother wants him to be a priest, however he feels he cannot because he has seen so many bad things in his life, for example someone being murdered, his brothers beating him up and making fun of him, them going to “whore houses” and being very inconsiderate towards him. Antonio also had to witness many deaths, like the death of Lupito, Narciso, Florence, and Ultima and her owl, which all made him feel less innocent and not worthy.

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

Throughout the context of “Bless Me Ultima,” it is evident that there are many motifs and examples of dichotomy. I believe that Anaya uses the previously mentioned elements of literature in order to provoke his readers’ thinking and help embody a struggle of understanding the world we live in. Motifs in this novel include: family, dreams, religion, education, and the list continues. For examples of dichotomy, the idea of good versus evil is the most vivid in this novel.

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

She teaches him that the philosophical questions cannot be answered by one religion. The secondary theme in this novel is the influence of culture in one’s identity. When we are first introduced to Antonio, he is extremely curious and expects to find the answer to all of his questions with one religion. He mostly expects his Catholic religion to answer all his questions because an abundance of people have told Tony that after his first Communion, everything will make sense. However, after his first Communion, nothing happened, “A thousand questions pushed through my mind, but the Voice within me did not answer.