Literacy Elements In Bless Me, Ultima By Rudolf Anaya

Through Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, the reader notices many themes. One central, and very important theme is the repetition of the number three. For example, there are three sources of understand for Antonio, three deaths that Antonio witnesses, and Antonio's three prophetic dreams. These all play crucial roles in both Antonio's life and serving to further the plot.

“Bless me, Ultima” and “Flight” both suggest that magical realism/fantasy influences the main characters ability to find their identity. While Antonio, from the book “Bless me, Ultima” uses Antonio’s dreams to show how Antonio’s premonitions of his association with Ultima and her influence on him as a teacher, on the other hand, Zits, from the book “Flight” has the use of time travel to help the Zits discover himself through embodying a variety of people throughout different points in history. These people help zits discover himself through the many different themes they all shine down on Zits. Magical realism enhances the themes of the novels by providing a lesson for the main character after each occurrence.

Two other literary elements that Rudolfo Anaya includes in “Bless Me, Ultima” are magical realism and archetypes. Magical realism can be described as something that is not necessarily real but is believable and could be considered a miracle. Archetypes are typical examples of a person, place or thing. Anaya includes many examples of both not only to make the story grasp the reader more, but to guide the reader to interpret the story through their own lenses.

Traditional New Mexican culture is the backbone of Bless Me, Ultima. Although there a lot of qualities taken from the culture, readers will view the novel from multiple perspectives and separate the realistic representations of the culture from fiction. Analyzing different elements from the novel will demonstrate how the relationship between them brings the world of Bless Me, Ultima to life. The elements of the llano, owl, and whirlwind will specifically examine Ultima and her role as a curandera. These are just three of the elements, but all of them together are essential to Tony’s understanding of Ultima and his coming of age we see throughout the novel.

is the use of motifs. A motif is a recurring theme that is used throughout the

“Always the eaves creaked, tortured with a wordless prophecy; heedless of it all the clock ticked on in idiot content.” In the “Painted Door,” Sinclair Ross used motif to emphasize various key elements in the story. He used repetition to fabricate a different profile for each of the three key characters. Another key element enhanced by motif was the conflicts in the story. Finally, Ross used the iteration of ideas to create a more animated atmosphere.

As I reflect on my childhood, the first memory of literacy I recall is when I was in kindergarten. I was approaching the end of the school year when my mother revealed to me my teacher was considering keeping me in kindergarten for another year. I was extremely upset and felt as if I had failed my first year of school. I felt that I was fresh out of the gate and already defective. My perception as a child was that the adults were already giving up on me. The teacher stated if I could learn the alphabet by the end of the school year I could continue ahead to the 1st grade. The conclusion of Kindergarten was vastly approaching. My mother constructed flash cards to help with my letter recognition. In doing so, she realized I could not see the letters. My mother promptly made an appointment for me to visit an Optometrist to evaluate me. Before I knew it, I was fitted with a big plastic pair of glasses. My world became much clearer after that. My mother was upset that my teacher did not recognize the problem, and that I never spoke up. Fortunately, I passed kindergarten with a lot of hard work from my parents, teacher, and I.

Imagine, every morning you wake up to the sound of the rooster singing. Not to the normal crow a rooster makes, but to a beautiful sonata that wakes your soul up from a deep slumber. It may not sound too realistic in our real word, but to a writer, this can bring special emphases to the story’s meaning. This literary practice is called magical realism. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines magical realism, or magic realism as they put it; 1) painting in a meticulously realistic style of imaginary or fantastic scenes or images; and 2) a literary genre or style associated especially with Latin America that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction. It is the second definition that author Laura Esquivel, incorporates magical realism into her book, Like Water for Chocolate. Many of the themes and emotions in the book are emphasized with the use of Magical realism.

Literacy is defined as being literate, that is, being able to read and write in a language. My personal experience with literacy began at an early age, at the age of 4 when I began to sit and read words and letters in the back of my mother’s car. Soon enough, she would bring me a magazine called “Majed” which, in the 90’s, was a popular magazine. With this, I began even more interested in reading and writing and reviewed every word in the magazine associated with each of the short pictured stories. It was the first memory I deeply recall of literacy and it was what laid the foundation for my personal love of reading and writing. The methodology used for this is an interview. There are three interviews which are analyzed and brought together in the form of a narrative. This narrative serves to better explain the emotions and thoughts that the interviewees had about the idea of literacy.

The first literary element is characterization. The main character in the story is Jackson Oz. He is bold and works on things he believes in. At the beginning of the story he says “Life is flowing along like a fairy tale, and then you see something that you just can’t categorize. Something that starts filling your every thought, your every dream, your every waking moment”(21, 3). Which means if there is something bothering you that you want to do, do it.

The novel fits the description of “magical realism” because a lot of the concept in Bless Me, Ultima seems realistic but at the same time some of the other concepts seem much exaggerated, they are like images that can be imagined in our head, but in the book these things actually happen in life. “Oh, our sweet baby, we are coming home to you” “Aghhhhhhh! My brothers!” I screamed. I bolted up and found myself in bed. My body was wet with sweat, and my lips were trembling. I felt a heavy sorrow gagging my heart, and it was hard to breath. Outside I heard the owl cry in alarm. Someone was coming up the goat path. I jumped into my pants and raced out into the cold night. There just coming over the slope of the hill were three dark figures” (page 61 and 62). This excerpt from the book shows how Antonio was having a dream of his brothers and that they were coming home but, when Antonio woke up, he realized that his brothers were really home. In a way his dream was a way of foreshadow.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” (Mahatma Gandhi). Learning is essential to grow as an individual and expand your knowledge. Literacy is key for broadening our mentality and a person will only benefit from it. For me, especially, literacy has been essential for my growth and the challenges I have taken on. Everything in my life has depended on my knowledge and skills that I have acquired, and I am continuously developing new techniques.

The author creates strange, unknown sentiments that we wouldn’t normally experience in normal life. “The wonderful thing about magic realism is its reality.” (Garcia Marquez-Magical Realism)

Magical realism combines cultural and historical realities with magic to create a normal yet magical setting in a story.Magical realism can include aspects of the mundane and even metamorphosis can be seen throughout stories of magical realism. It is important to know the different aspects magical realism attains. These attributes are expressed throughout the stories, Bless Me, Ultima, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in The World”

Repetition brings little, but important aspects of life and society up again. For example, it is used to show that laws are not followed in neither Egypt nor Syria. Possibly, the laws are not even forced. “I put my hand into my pocket but did not find the piaster (Mahfouz, 71).” Sadly, as a child, items are easily lost and yet everyone calls the child useless. This eventually makes the child believe it too. However, most may not have a chance at an education. “A stupefying joy overwhelmed me… In dumb terror (Mahfouz, 72 and 75).” All of these feeling were started because of the child’s curiosity, which causes them to stumble upon bad situations. Given those scarring situations, they attach onto any hope they are given. Specifically, heroic tales gave one hope in this story. For example, the child was “so taken up was I with the pictures of chivalry, love and deeds of daring… but dreams of heroism and valor