SOURCE: “Bless Me, Ultima,” in Rudolfo A. Anaya: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Press, 1999, pp. 25–44.

[In the following essay, Olmos provides an overview of the major themes, narrative techniques, and critical interpretations of Bless Me, Ultima.]

In Rudolfo Anaya's first novel he turned to his life experiences for inspiration. The story of the awakening of the consciousness of a young boy growing up in a small New Mexico town shortly after World War II closely parallels the author's own life (see chapter 1 herein). At the same time, however, Bless Me, Ultima is a highly original work with a unique story and a universal appeal that established Anaya's international reputation. This chapter will focus on his best-known novel, a work of poetic beauty and richness that introduces the themes and motifs that have become the hallmark of Anaya's writing.

NARRATIVE STRATEGIES

How can a story told from the vantage point of a seven-year-old boy express profound insights and complex ideas? Bless Me, Ultima accomplishes the task by being an extended flashback—that is, by assuring the reader from the very beginning that the events described, although seemingly occurring in the present, in fact occurred at an earlier time. The narrator is, therefore, by implication, an adult. Anaya is able to maneuver this tension of the older implied narrator and the younger voice of the child-protagonist Antonio Márez by carefully re-creating the reactions of a small boy. Antonio's comments reflect the expected limitations of a child of that age. For Antonio, World War II is a “far-off war of the Japanese and the Germans,” for example, and other historical events are explained in an equally simple, age-appropriate manner.

The reader is informed that Ultima, a respected midwife, came to stay with Antonio Márez and his family the summer that he was almost seven years old. Her arrival marks a beginning—“the beginning that came with Ultima” (1)—and, indeed, Antonio's story begins and ends with her. Subsequent references in the same chapter to a time “long after Ultima was gone and I had grown to be a man” (13) affirm the fact that, although the story is presented in the voice of a young boy, the events are actually those of a remembered youth. Time and chronology assume additional significance; time is described as “magical,” it “stands still” and is linked with the character of Ultima. She represents origins and beginnings. Her very name implies extremes and the extent of time and distance that Antonio will travel on his passage from innocence into awareness.

Bless Me, Ultima is an accessible novel despite its grounding in Chicano folk culture and myth and its occasional use of Spanish. It follows a linear, or straightforward, story development, a plotline that is clearly defined, and avoids the more experimental prose styles of other writers. Levels of narration are delineated for the reader by the use of italics, a device Anaya employs frequently. Antonio's dream sequences, for example, are separated from the rest of the narration by italics, indicating a different dimension of consciousness. The first chapter serves important functions in plot development and structure. It gently guides the reader toward essential story elements such as setting, characters, and historical background, and it introduces the major conflicts that will form the basis for the dramatic tension throughout the novel. The technique of foreshadowing, which can often provide structural and thematic unity to a work, first appears in the introductory chapter.

“Foreshadowing” refers to the device of hinting at events to come; later events are therefore prepared for or shadowed forth beforehand, building suspense and reader expectation. In Bless Me, Ultima foreshadowing ranges from statements that openly indicate future events to symbolic premonitions in dreams that suggest them. After Antonio's home is described in Chapter One as a place that offers the young boy a unique vantage point from which to observe family incidents, he refers to the tragedy of the sheriff's murder that has yet to occur, the anguish of his brothers’ future rebellion against their father, and the many nights when he will see Ultima returning from her moonlit labors gathering the herbs that are folk healer's remedies. Ultima, who rarely speaks and whose words are therefore significant, states that “there will be something” between herself and Antonio, suggesting a strong and important relationship yet to come. But the most effective foreshadowing technique is found in Antonio's dream sequences throughout the novel, the first of which occurs in Chapter One. These sequences express the dread and anxiety of his inner world but are also frequently premonitions of the future. Antonio's dreams provide both a structural and thematic framework for the novel as they illustrate past events and suggest future conflicts.

SETTING

The setting is of particular importance in this novel, as it is in most of Anaya's fiction. Nature is part of the magic that will teach young Antonio that seemingly incarnate elements are actually living beings, whose beauty and value the young boy will discover with Ultima's help—a river that sings, land that impresses its mysteries into the narrator's “living blood” (1). The setting, the world of nature in rural New Mexico, assumes a significance similar to that of a character in terms of its influence on people and events. Since setting is of paramount importance in so much of Anaya's work, the landscape, the environment, the forces of nature, the llano (plains) of New Mexico all combine to create a powerful sense of place that produces an experience Anaya has referred to as an “epiphany,” a sudden flash of enlightenment or a revealing intuition often occasioned by something trivial or apparently insignificant. This is the type of experience we observe in Antonio, for example, in several scenes in which he allows himself to be transformed by opening his eyes to the beauty of the simple objects in his natural environment. Anaya has occasionally described this experience using a term invented by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, “inscape,” by which is meant a type of mystical illumination or insight into the fundamental order and unity of all of creation.

CULTURAL CONTEXT

Family history and New Mexican history are inextricably linked in Bless Me, Ultima. Antonio's father, Gabriel Márez, teaches the young boy about his past, which is tied to the Spanish colonial period of the region. Gabriel is a vaquero, or cowboy, but this is more than just an occupation: it is a “calling” that has united Antonio's father and his paternal ancestors to the New Mexican plains, described as vast as the oceans. (Indeed, Antonio's father's surname, Márez, derives from the Spanish word mar, meaning the sea.) Social and economic changes in the state severely curtailed the free-spirited, aggressive lifestyle of the vaqueros, however, when Anglo settlers took control of the land. The novel refers to such background information as part of the process of Antonio's education concerning his family's past. These facts also serve to provide readers with the cultural and historical foundation that will broaden their appreciation of events in the novel.

Antonio's mother, María Luna, is also linked with local culture but from a different perspective, as her own surname, Luna, implies. (The Lunas are a people of the moon, tied to the land as farmers.) The Lunas represent a different tradition within the rural U.S. Hispanic culture of the Southwest: the farming tradition—settled, tranquil, modest, devout, tied to old ways and customs. María had convinced her husband to leave the village of Las Pasturas and a lifestyle she considered coarse and wild, to move the family to the town of Guadalupe, where better opportunities existed for their children. The move separates Gabriel from the other vaqueros and the free llano life he loves. He becomes a bitter man who drinks to soothe his hurt pride and his loneliness. The differences between these two cultures form the basis for the first major conflict affecting Antonio's family. These tensions, as we will discover in others throughout the work, are presented as dichotomies: Márez/Luna, vaquero/farmer, free-spirited/settled. Antonio must find a balance in these divided forces, which tug at him from opposite directions.

The first dream sequence in Chapter One illustrates his anxieties. Antonio describes a dream in which he witnesses his own birth assisted by an old midwife. After he is born she wraps up the umbilical cord and the placenta as an offering to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the town (and of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in general). In his dream Antonio observes a terrible quarrel between the two branches of his family. The Lunas hope that the baby will become one of them, or possibly even a priest (his mother's fervent hope); the Márez uncles smash the symbolic offerings of fruits and vegetables brought by the mother's clan, replacing them with their own emblematic gifts of a saddle, a bridle, and a guitar. They hope Antonio will follow their free-spirited ways.

Both families frantically attempt to take hold of the placenta, hoping to control the baby's destiny by disposing of it in their own allegorical fashion. The Lunas want to bury it in the fields, tying the boy to the earth; the Márez family wishes to burn it and scatter the ashes freely to the winds of the llano. The families nearly come to blows over the issue until the old midwife steps in, claiming her rights as the person who brought the young life into the world to dispose of the afterbirth herself.

That old midwife is Ultima, the curandera, or folk healer, who eventually comes to live in their home. One issue upon which both parents agree is their obligation to provide and care for the elders, respecting customs and traditions. Therefore, when Antonio's father discovers that Ultima will be living alone in the llano as people abandon the village of Las Pasturas, he and Antonio's mother decide to invite her into their household in gratitude for her years of service to them and the community. Ultima is a respected figure, referred to as “La Grande,” the old wise one. Outside of the family, however, Ultima is feared by some. Her healing powers are suspect, and she is considered a bruja, or witch. The suggestion of witchcraft brings a shudder of fear to Antonio and is a warning to the reader as well; the idea that witches can heal but can also place and lift curses with evil powers is another example of Anaya's foreshadowing of things to come.

Ultima is associated with ancient traditions and wisdom; in Bless Me, Ultima she is also equated with the forces of nature. Her meeting with Antonio is accompanied by a whirlwind, an oft-repeated motif representing magical power and/or a warning of danger. As in traditional witch stories, Ultima is identified with a specific animal—in this case an owl. The animal is reputed to be a disguise assumed by witches, but Ultima's owl does not frighten Antonio. On the contrary, her owl protects, defends, and soothes him, an observation legitimized by another of Antonio's dreams in which the owl flies the Virgin of Guadalupe on its wings to heaven.

LANGUAGE

From the very first pages of the novel, Anaya interjects the Spanish language into the narration, in the form of individual words, characters’ names, local references, and, on occasion, entire sentences of dialogue, as well as the chapter numeration. This interjection is accomplished with a naturalness that avoids interrupting the flow of the story. Spanish words are not italicized or differentiated in any way from the rest of the text, nor are there footnotes or a glossary to define them; rather, they are explained in a subtle, unobtrusive manner where appropriate. Occasionally an English equivalent will appear in sentences after a Spanish term has been introduced, or an explanatory phrase will clarify some term for those unfamiliar with the language. In several instances the syntax and phrasing of some of the dialogue in English sounds like a literal translation from Spanish. The bilingual use of language is limited but nonetheless effective in creating a distinctive tone in the novel. It is rationalized in the first chapter when Antonio affirms that the older people of his community speak exclusively in Spanish and that he himself learned English only after attending school (10). The use of Spanish is a carefully and minutely crafted device that is accepted by the reader as natural and logical, something not unexpected.

DREAM SYMBOLISM

Throughout Bless Me, Ultima Antonio's dreams serve several functions: they sometimes anticipate events to come, but more important they are an index to the main character's emotional and psychological development. Anaya has skillfully blended the external plot events with Antonio's frequent introspective musings and his world of dreams, a combination of personal experience, fantasy, and mythical legend. The blending is often achieved by the main character himself; reflecting on the importance of his dreams, Antonio will interpret their significance in the narratives that follow them. After the second dream in Chapter Two, which ends with his mother crying because Antonio is growing old (26), for example, the narrator begins the following chapter remarking on his fleeting youth (27), repeating the same message of his growing maturity. Indeed, Anaya leaves little to the reader's imagination regarding the interpretation of Antonio's dreams and other plot elements. The narrator often regulates our reading of the work by commenting on events and repeating their message. Comments such as “That is what Ultima meant by building strength from life” (247) ensure that the reader will remain on the right track.

Antonio's dreams pervade his waking hours; each influences to some degree his conduct and attitude. In Chapter Nine, for instance, aware that his brothers frequent “Rosie's house,” the town brothel, Antonio's musings on his brothers’ behavior mirror his own apprehensions with regard to women and sexuality, innocence and the concept of sin. The young boy represses his disturbing feelings by transferring them to a dream about his brothers’ restlessness as they experience the restraints of a small town and their parents’ aspirations. Their behavior is rationalized in the novel, in great part, by their lineage; the notion of blood and heredity is a motif throughout Bless Me, Ultima. Just as Gabriel's aggressiveness and María's gentle, subdued manner are understood as hereditary qualities in the “blood,” Antonio's brothers’ attitudes and actions are attributed to their father's character: “The Márez blood draws them away from home and parents” (72). Antonio's mother attempts to link his destiny with that of a Luna ancestor, a priest who supposedly established Guadalupe generations earlier. In his dream Antonio's brothers declare him to be a Luna who, for their mother's sake, will become a farmer-priest like their maternal ancestor. The dream sequences serve as good examples of the cross-weaving of the external and internal conflicts that drive the plot.

PLOT DEVELOPMENT

After her arrival in the home of Antonio's family, Ultima settles into a bucolic life. All the family members benefit from her presence: Antonio's mother is happy to share her days with another adult female, his sisters’ chores are lessened with Ultima's assistance, and Antonio's father has someone to whom he can relate his frustrated dreams of moving westward to California with his older sons. World War II has taken them from his side, upsetting his plans. Antonio enjoys Ultima's presence as well; she is his mentor in the ways of nature and spirituality. This time of innocent joy gives way, however, to his first terrible experience of violence and death, to which Ultima's owl will sound a warning cry, as it does whenever it senses danger that could affect the family.

The dramatic events that propel the evolution of the main story (the external events that effect change in Antonio) are initiated dramatically in Chapter Two with the murder of the town sheriff, Chávez, and the revenge taken against his murderer, Lupito. Lupito is a disturbed man whose mind has been traumatized by war. His senseless killing of the sheriff incenses the men of the town, who form a search party to capture and punish the culprit. Hiding in bushes near the river, Antonio observes them. Despite attempts to sway the group, the men kill Lupito and thereby rouse Antonio's first doubts of conscience. Issues of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, the concept of God and justice are thoughts that assail his young, impressionable mind. This is the first of four tragic deaths that Antonio will encounter in a brief space of time. Ultima's influence is felt here too in the presence of her owl, which accompanies Antonio and calms his fears, temporarily dispelling his anxieties.

As in most novels of the coming-of-age genre, a significant element of the young narrator's development is his or her relationship with peers. School and a social network form a crucial component of the type of knowledge a young child will require to survive and flourish beyond the family orbit. Antonio is successful at making friends, among them Jason Chávez, Samuel, and Cico, who introduce him to a world of native legend and a type of spirituality and morality outside of official, established religion. The catechism lessons he studies in order to receive the sacrament of First Communion in the Catholic Church conflict with the folk traditions he learns from his friends. They propose an alternative religiosity and code of morality based on indigenous beliefs and offer a contrasting pagan deity to his family's devout Christianity. In Chapter Nine the boys relate the well-guarded secret of the golden carp (a secret known to few children and only to adults who, like Ultima, are “different”). The story is first told to Jason by the only Indian in town, a character referred to simply as “Jason's Indian.” The legend holds that the carp had once been a god. The people who lived in that earlier time had sinned, and their punishment was to become fish. Loving his people, the god also became a fish to swim among them and protect them. The waters of the rivers and lakes that surround the town of Guadalupe hold other secrets as well, including that of a mermaid, a siren whose singing pulls those who hear it into the dark waters of the Hidden Lakes (115–117).

These stories create more religious dilemmas for Antonio, adding to his already confused spirituality. As in previous circumstances, Antonio confronts and partially resolves these conflicts in his dreams. In one dream the waters of the mermaid and the golden carp transform themselves into the stormy waters of his parents’ fierce struggle over his future. The sweet water of the placid Luna moon tries to claim his loyalty, while his father rages that the salt water of the oceans is what truly binds him as a Márez. The conflict grows into a cosmic storm that threatens to destroy everything until Ultima intercedes. She brings peace to the dream (and to Antonio's tortured psyche) as she clarifies the meaning for Antonio, explaining that the moon and seas are not divided or distinct, but are, in fact, part of a holistic cycle of oneness, each replenished by the other.

Antonio's early doubts regarding established religion and conventional beliefs are heightened in Chapter Ten when the devoutly Catholic Lunas turn to Ultima to cure a family member who had been cursed by the three daughters of Tenorio Trementina, the town barber and owner of a run-down saloon. The women are believed to be witches and are referred to as “cohorts of the devil.” María's brother Lucas had inadvertently witnessed one of their demonic rituals and had confronted them. Their evil powers bring him to death's door, and Ultima is summoned when Western medicine and the Catholic priest fail to break the spell. This chapter is one of the most effective in terms of creating an atmosphere of suspense and mystery. The narrator reiterates words that suggest wickedness and fear: sinister signs, Black Masses, the appearance of devils, and an “early horned moon” combine with familiar clichés regarding female witchcraft (for example, dancing with the devil, vulnerability to bullets etched with a sign of the cross, ritual sacrificing of animals, the use of dolls to create harmful spells). The drive to the Luna farm, normally a pleasant journey, is now “filled with strange portents,” the atmosphere of the family home is “deathly quiet,” and even the weather responds to psychic forces (90–91).

When Ultima confronts Tenorio and requests that his daughters cease their evil curse on Antonio's uncle or accept the consequences of their actions, a mournful whirlwind provides the background to the scene: the sky grows dark, blocking out the sun to produce an atmosphere described as “unnatural” (94–95). These and many other details contribute to the suspense that builds up to the process of the cure itself, a type of exorcism in which Ultima, with Antonio serving as his bewitched uncle's spiritual double, will rid Lucas of the evil curse. The three days that Antonio will suffer along with his uncle and his symbolic death and rebirth to save another are all part of Antonio's spiritual challenges. More powerful than the three witches and even more powerful than the priest and doctors, Ultima's faculties extend to retribution as well. Tenorio's daughters will pay for their crimes. One by one they fall ill and die. Ultima will be accused of witchcraft herself and put to the test by Tenorio and his friends, but her power is greater, and she is vindicated. Ultima's actions, however, set in motion the chain of events that will eventually lead to her own death at Tenorio's hands.

Chapter Fourteen combines many different plot elements that build toward the climax and contribute to the outcome of Antonio's ultimate understanding of himself. The chapter begins with Antonio's return to school, where he has found acceptance and a sense of belonging. It contains a rare note of humor in the depiction of the school Christmas play. A terrible blizzard prevents the girls of the school from attending and playing their assigned roles. The boys substitute grudgingly. The production is a calamity but ends in good-humored bedlam.

The relief of tension is short lived, however. Another of Tenorio's daughters falls ill, and he repeats his vow to kill Ultima and Narciso, a friend of the family. After school Antonio braves the blizzard alone and heads for home. He witnesses an argument between Tenorio and Narciso, who leaves to warn Ultima of the danger. Not realizing that he is being observed by Antonio, Narciso stops on his way at Rosie's brothel to warn Antonio's brother, Andrew, of Tenorio's plans. This scene adds to Antonio's confusion: Why does Narciso search for Andrew in such a place? Which Márez is Narciso calling for at the door? Could his own father be inside? In a prior dream Andrew had told Antonio that he would not enter Rosie's until his young brother had lost his innocence. Had young Antonio's experiences of death and violence, of magical cures and pagan gods, opened the path for sin to enter his soul? His crisis is exacerbated by his brother's appearance by the side of a young prostitute who convinces Andrew to remain with her instead of assisting Narciso. Still hidden by the storm, the boy observes Tenorio ambush Narciso and murder him.

Antonio runs home and informs his parents, succumbing to a fever and a terrible pesadilla (nightmare); his apocalyptic, end-of-the-world dream is one of the novel's most vivid. The main character's sense of confused guilt and terror fuses with figures and events from his past life in a chaotic frenzy. The thunderous voice of a vengeful God frightens the boy, who relives in his dream the murder, satanic rituals, and other forms of wickedness, as well as terrifying biblical tortures. The nightmare will end in resolution, however, effected by the healing power of nature. The golden carp swallows everything—good and evil—taking with it all the pain and strife of humanity. Antonio's subconscious discovers order and harmony in nature and native mythology.

Subsequent events in the novel continue to test the young boy's faith in God and humanity and the belief system he has been raised to maintain. In Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen the catechism lessons he must take fail to satisfy his spiritual needs. When a friend, Florence, challenges Antonio's religious beliefs, schoolmates force Antonio to play the role of priest to punish Florence for his ideas. In several other instances Antonio inadvertently finds himself in that same role: “Bless me” are the final words he hears from Lupito before his violent death near the river, and Narciso's dying wish is for Antonio to hear his confession. The religious event that Antonio had so anticipated is disappointing; all the doubts he believed would be answered with the experience of First Communion receive no reply: “The God I so eagerly sought was not there, and the understanding I thought to gain was not there” (222).

Tenorio's threats against Ultima continue, but his evil extends to others as well. In Chapter Twenty a curse has been placed on a family that seeks Ultima's assistance. Stones rain from the sky on the Téllez family home, which even the priest's blessings were unable to prevent. Ultima determines that the curse was laid on a bulto (ghost) that haunts the house. The curse is linked in the novel with historical abuses against the indigenous peoples of the region. Ultima explains that the area was once the land of the Comanche Indians. Displaced by the Spaniards and Mexicans, three Indians had raided Téllez's grandfather's flocks for food and were hanged as punishment. As their bodies were not accorded a customary burial, their wandering souls can be used to harm others. Tenorio's daughters have awakened the Indian ghosts of the past to harm the Téllez family, but with Ultima's guidance a ceremonial cremation gives the Comanche spirits rest and eliminates the curse. Events such as these add to Antonio's anxieties and undermine his faith in God, who was not able to free the Téllez family from the curse.

The reappearance of the golden carp in the lake, however, soothes his worries: “Seeing him made questions and worries evaporate, and I remained transfixed, caught and caressed by the essential elements of sky and earth and water” (237). Antonio would like to share this feeling of tranquillity and illumination, “the beginning of adoration of something simple and pure” (238), with Florence, who had been alienated from Catholicism and spirituality by his own life experiences, but the protagonist will not get that opportunity. That same day Florence drowns in a tragic swimming accident in a forbidden section of the lake.

Antonio's family sends him to the Luna farm to rest from his terrible experiences and spend the summer assisting his uncles, a time he describes as “the last summer I was truly a child” (250). A heart-to-heart talk with his father during their trip to the farm brings them closer to an understanding, but trouble will reach Antonio even in this tranquil environment. Tenorio's second daughter has died, and he resolves again to take his vengeance. This time, however, he will attack Ultima's owl realizing that it is her very spirit.

After attempting to kill Antonio with his stallion, Tenorio makes for the boy's home. Antonio tries to warn Ultima, but he is too late. Tenorio points his rifle first at Antonio, but Ultima's owl takes the bullet in his place, mortally wounding her. “That shot destroyed the quiet, moonlit peace of the hill, and it shattered my childhood into a thousand fragments that long ago stopped falling and are now dusty relics gathered in distant memories” (258). Another attempt to destroy Antonio brings Tenorio's death, as he himself is killed by one of Antonio's uncles. The novel ends with Ultima's final blessing on the young boy, who gives her owl the burial Ultima has requested. The reader is left with the impression that Antonio will go on, better able to understand himself and find the answers he so wishes to discover.

CHARACTERIZATION

Bless Me, Ultima tells the story of an important relationship between a young boy and an old woman who helps him discover the beauty and complexity in life and in himself. As both protagonist and narrator, Antonio gradually reveals himself to the reader through his own words and through his dreams; he is both an evolving character and a narrating voice. Ultima, on the other hand, is revealed to us more by her actions and by the other characters’ reactions to them. Many of the important events of the novel center on her. Her importance as a character is more functional: her character advances thematic concerns and helps to expose Antonio's qualities. Although less developed than Antonio's character, Ultima is integral to the novel nonetheless. As stated before, Bless Me, Ultima begins and ends with Ultima, and the relationship between her and Antonio propels the process of the boy-hero's development as a character.

Inquisitive and courageous, sensitive and thoughtful, Antonio's character evolves on several levels: on the objective, external plane his character passes through a variety of experiences, some typical of most young boys, some highly unusual. Many of his experiences can be compared to those of other rural Hispanic children in the U.S. Southwest of a certain era: he is raised in a Spanish-speaking home where traditions are maintained and respected; he confronts an Anglo-oriented school system where he is linguistically and culturally socialized into mainstream society; he is indoctrinated into the Catholic religion even as he is surrounded by competing influences.

Other experiences are less typical and even extraordinary: in a short period of time Antonio confronts violence and murder, tragic death, witchcraft, and supernatural phenomena. He will actively participate in ritual healing and even experience a symbolic death and rebirth as a part of his spiritual and psychological maturation. What Antonio cannot face or understand on a conscious level is deciphered in his dreams. His doubts and uncertainties are echoed on the subconscious level and occasionally resolved there as well. His reactions to these events as expressed in his dreams are the most revealing insights into the growth and evolution of the character, providing a thematic framework of his gradual transformation.

As noted earlier, Antonio's first dream is of his own birth; both his biological mother and his spiritual mother (Ultima) are present. The dreams that follow reflect concerns about family and fear of losses (of people and illusions) that prepare him for his passage into adulthood and individuality. The critic Vernon E. Lattin divides the nine remaining dreams that follow the birth sequence into groups that reveal the path to Antonio's destiny (“‘Horror of Darkness’” 51–57). Dreams three (45), five (70), and seven (140) reflect the fear of loss: Antonio foresees that he will not become the priest his mother had hoped for, his innocence will be lost as he faces the temptations of sexuality, and the vision of Ultima in her coffin foreshadows the loss through death of his spiritual mother. Dreams two (25), four (61), and nine (235) reflect anxieties concerning Antonio's brothers and the larger world beyond, foreshadowing the experience of loss that he must assimilate in order to attain adulthood. In dreams two and four Antonio's brothers confront their own destinies beyond the family. With Antonio's help they can face the dangers of the treacherous river, but Antonio comes to realize that he cannot always assist these giants of his dreams, and by dream nine he resigns himself to the fact that they are lost to him and to his parents. Like the souls of the Comanche spirits calmed by Ultima's ritual cremation, the souls of his brothers are put to rest in Antonio's anguished psyche.

Dreams six (119), eight (172), and ten (243) are considered by Lattin and other critics as the most significant, “the dreams most homologous with the experience of the sacred, and as they present the dark night of the soul, they prepare the soul for its rebirth” (Lattin, “‘Horror of Darkness’” 55). Dream six is the calm of reconciliation after the storm, an important step in solving Antonio's dilemma of good versus evil. The eighth dream becomes progressively more violent as despair and destruction are vividly communicated to the young boy: his home is set afire, his family is destroyed, Ultima is beheaded by an angry mob, and all life around him disintegrates. From this cosmic nothingness, regenerative powers emerge. Although Antonio's final dream, the tenth, is filled with the terror of death, the reader senses that he is now more prepared to accept and understand the realities of life. Having by now witnessed so much of Ultima's healing power, the messages of her teachings and of his own dreams have revealed themselves to him. Toward the novel's end he reflects: “And that is what Ultima tried to teach me, that the tragic consequences of life can be overcome by the magical strength that resides in the human heart” (249).

Ultima, as previously noted, is a less developed character than Antonio, but she is crucial nonetheless. At once a stabilizer and a catalyst for growth and change, the story revolves around the transference of her knowledge and worldview to Antonio. In Ultima Anaya has created a fascinating character who embodies the combination of indigenous traditions, ancient beliefs, and shamanic healing. Ultima is seer and natural scientist, teacher and herbal doctor. Despite her never having married or having had children of her own, she is a symbolic mother figure representing the mysteries of life, death, and transformation.

Ultima is a conciliatory force in the novel, guiding Antonio between the extremes of his parents and the myriad other tensions he must attempt to resolve. Respected as “una mujer que no ha pecado” (a woman who has not sinned) she is also feared. Her skills were acquired from a renowned healer, “the flying man of Las Pasturas,” and hence many consider her a bruja. Ultima's characterization goes beyond the usual expectations regarding gendered roles for men and women because she is a curandera; she is afforded a place in the public world not usually given to women in traditional patriarchal cultures. Her power comes in part from her knowledge of herbal remedies, spiritual healing, and magical rituals. Her spiritual approach comes from numerous sources: from modern medicine, time-honored Native-American curative practices, Christianity, and pagan traditions. The complexity of this character derives from these differing sources that are blended in her. Ultima represents a Mexican/Amerindian tradition that has often been preserved precisely by women curanderas. Though uncommon in U.S. letters, curanderas have been a part of the Hispanic tradition for centuries and are familiar characters for many Hispanic readers.

Although somewhat ambiguous as to Ultima's status as a bruja, the novel clearly distinguishes between good and evil witches in its portrayal of Tenorio Trementina's three daughters. We learn of their practices through other characters. Tenorio himself is a troublemaker, his daughters bad-tempered and ugly. These characters are more stereotypical depictions of witches, participating in evil rituals with the devil, concocting terrible curses and brews, capable of assuming animal forms. Being labeled a bruja, however, is life threatening here, as evidenced in Tenorio's attempts to have Ultima declared a witch. A bruja is hated and feared even to the point of murder.

Tenorio and his daughters, along with other characters in the novel outside of Antonio and Ultima, are more functional than integral. They are one-dimensional and, in some cases, like that of the evil witches, little more than stereotypes. Some characters also serve an allegorical function, representing stages in Hispanic history in the region, recalling that the first Spanish settlers who arrived in the 1600s created a self-sufficient ranching and farming economy. In particular, the Márez side of Antonio's family epitomizes the early Spanish explorers, and the Lunas correspond to the brief Mexican period in New Mexico's history (Critics believe that the reference to the Luna farmer-priest ancestor who settled the town is an allusion to the historical figure of Father José A. Martinez, a New Mexican clergyman in the nineteenth century who played a key role in the Taos revolt of 1846.)

THEMES

Given the density of symbolism, myth, and cultural references in Bless Me, Ultima, it is not surprising that the novel has inspired a variety of critical responses. On the most fundamental level the novel's major theme is the coming-of-age and self-realization of a young Hispanic boy in New Mexico. Other topics are the quest for personal and cultural identity, the significance of Chicano tradition and myth in spirituality and healing, and the role of mentors and guides in psychological and spiritual growth and development. Ultima fulfills that role in Antonio's life; her intimate knowledge of nature and healing introduces him to the sources that will facilitate his understanding of himself and his world. The varied elements in the novel that determine who the boy-hero will eventually become have prompted numerous and diverse readings of the novel.

Bless Me, Ultima emphasizes the protagonist's need to reconcile the opposites in his life. The novel offers numerous conflicts the young boy must confront and presents them as seemingly irreconcilable dichotomies. The most evident is the clash between his father's pastoral lifestyle and his mother's farming tradition. The differences between the two are repeated throughout the novel, underscored by their very surnames—Márez and Luna. Other striking examples are the conflicts between male and female, good and evil (personified in the beneficent mother figure Ultima versus the evil father Tenorio), love and hate, town and country, a Christian God versus the golden carp, and so forth.

Ultima's role is that of mediator, from the first dream in which she resolves the dispute between the two families who wish to control Antonio's destiny to the dream in which she reconciles the dichotomy of the waters of the sea and the moon by reminding Antonio that “the waters are one.” Antonio, however, is also a mediator, searching for a middle ground, attempting to please both parents in the house they built in a space in-between them—not quite in the fertile valley but at the edges of the llano. The boy's chores will please both mother and father: he feeds the animals but also tries to create a garden from the rugged soil of the plains.

Some critics have also noted the message of reconciliation, synthesis, and harmony that is apparent in the novel. Conflicts and imbalances find a solution in harmony, balance, and a message of oneness; synthesis resolves opposites and mediates differences. Generally the balance and mediation is brought about by Ultima or Antonio; in other instances the wisdom of nature itself restores harmony.

Some readings of the novel portray it as a nostalgic text, romanticizing an era that has little relevance for contemporary Chicano readers, who are largely urban and for whom the conflicts among rural Hispanic traditions are issues of the past. Other critics disagree. For Horst Tonn, Bless Me, Ultima can be read on another level at which “the novel constitutes a significant response to relevant issues of the community. In broad terms, these issues are identity formation, mediation of conflict, and utilization of the past for the exigencies of the present” (“Bless Me, Ultima: Fictional Response” 2). At the time Anaya was writing his work the society of the United States was experiencing a crisis of values similar to that portrayed in the novel in the mid-1940s. The theme of the pressure of change portrayed in the novel that Tonn identifies is underscored in the scene in which the townspeople react to the detonation of the first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945: “They compete with God, they disturb the seasons, they seek to know more than God Himself. In the end, that knowledge they seek will destroy us all” (190).

The disruptive effects of World War II on veterans and their families, as well as the internal migration from rural areas to the cities, have their counterpart in the social upheavals of the 1960s, when Chicanos participated in movements for social change and began to question their cultural values and identities. Bless Me, Ultima proposes responses to the contemporary crisis of values based on the need for healing and reconciliation. Just as Antonio and Ultima function as mediators, healing a community suffering from strife and disruption, “the novel itself can be said to share in and contribute to a mediation process at work in the Chicano community during the 1960s and early 1970s” (Tonn, “Bless Me, Ultima: Fictional Response” 5). Juan Bruce-Novoa agrees that Bless Me, Ultima is truly a novel reflective of its era. In the midst of conflict and violence, some present at the time proposed the alternative responses of “love, harmony, and the brotherhood of all creatures in a totally integrated ecology of resources. … Bless Me, Ultima belongs to the counterculture of brotherhood based on respect for all creation” (“Learning to Read” 186).

ALTERNATIVE READING: ARCHETYPAL MYTH CRITICISM

An analysis of Bless Me, Ultima based on myth theory and criticism emphasizes the developing dream life of its protagonist and Anaya's expressed affinity for myth (see chapters 1 and 2 in this book). Myth theory and criticism examine such questions as the origin and nature of myth and the relationship between myth and literature. Scholars and critics who have attempted to respond to these issues have done so from such diverse disciplines as philosophy, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, folklore, and political science.

The ideas of psychiatrist Carl G. Jung have inspired many literary critics, particularly in the field of archetypal criticism. Although often used synonymously with myth criticism, archetypal criticism has a distinct history, evolving specifically from Jung's theory of archetypes. As was noted earlier in chapter 2, Jung was a student of Sigmund Freud, who referred to dreams as “the royal road to the unconscious.” For Freud dreams reflected individual unconscious wishes and desires. Jung, on the other hand, believed that the recurrence of enduring symbols in dreams reflected a more universal and collective unconscious (inherited feelings, thoughts, and memories shared by all humans). He referred to the patterns of psychic energy that originate in the collective unconscious (and are normally manifested in dreams) as “archetypes” (the prime models upon which subsequent representations are based). The Jungian approach to mythology, therefore, is based on a belief of a common human access to the collective unconscious. Mankind in the modern world would encounter in dreams the same types of figures that appear in ancient and primitive mythology.

Jung described several of these archetypes specifically. Among them are the Shadow, the archetype of inherent evil; the Anima, the feminine principle that has multiple manifestations including the Earth Mother, the Good Mother, and its opposite, the Terrible Mother; and the Wise Old Man, who represents the enlightener, the master, the teacher. Often critics will use the term more loosely, referring to characters as archetypes to indicate that they represent universal principles. Rudolfo Anaya is well versed in these theories and has reflected on their validity: “One way I have in looking at my own work … is through a sense that I have about primal images, primal imageries. A sense that I have about the archetypal, about what we once must have known collectively” (Johnson and Apodaca, “Myth and the Writer” 422).

Bless Me, Ultima offers ample opportunities for archetypal interpretations. The archetypal feminine principle—the intuitive, loving, life-affirming protector and nurturer—can be attributed to Ultima, the Good Mother/Earth Mother, and on another level to the Virgin of Guadalupe, who appears often in Antonio's dreams and is his mother's spiritual protector. The Terrible Mother—the frightening female figure, emasculating and life threatening—corresponds to La Llorona, the legendary mother who destroyed her own children and threatens those of others. Female characters are presented as contrasts: Tenorio's daughters are the evil counterparts of Ultima's beneficent magic. The female temptress, representing female sexuality, appears on several levels: on the idealistic plane in the sirens and mermaids that lure men into dangerous waters but also in the prostitutes that work in Rosie's brothel, who cause men to stray from their rightful path. The archetypal Shadow is illustrated in numerous places, most obviously in the form of evil that Tenorio embodies, but the novel also teaches that evil can reside within people, hidden at a deeper level. Antonio's dreams, for example, force him to confront his own sinful temptations and self-doubts that must be overcome if he is to evolve and grow.

Antonio's character has been interpreted as that of the classic boy-hero who must successfully complete the universal rite of passage of separation, initiation, and return. He must depart the comforts of his mother's hearth and cross the bridge into the wide world of the town, with its perils and challenges. His trials will extend from witnessing Lupito's murder to actively participating in his uncle's ritual exorcism, during which he sacrifices himself for the sake of another. After three days of agony he will emerge as if reborn, a new, more mature boy who can reconcile himself with his father and mother and the world around him. Ultima provides him with the symbolic tools (her pouch of herbs) and the spiritual weapons (her teachings) that will assist him in this development.

A Jungian approach to Bless Me, Ultima could run the risk of leading to a static, unchanging mythical perception, however, one that certainly would not be faithful to Anaya's views on mythology. For the author mythology is not simply a refashioning or retelling of ancient or universal tales and patterns. Myths should speak to our contemporary lives, give significance to a community. Historically constructed over generations, myths can help us understand contemporary realities and conditions. A more dynamic approach to myth criticism in Bless Me, Ultima is described by Enrique Lamadrid as “an ongoing process of interpreting and mediating the contradictions in the everyday historical experience of the people” (“Myth as Cognitive Process” 103). In the novel this is manifested in the oppositions (for example, good versus evil, love versus hate) that are mediated by Ultima and Antonio. Their role is to reconcile these contradictions to arrive at harmony and synthesis and, in keeping with the original role of myth, resolve the internal schisms of their community.

A myth criticism interpretation of Bless Me, Ultima should bear in mind, however, that Anaya describes a specific culture, a particular belief system. An analysis of the character of Ultima may reflect universal principles, but it must be remembered that Ultima, as a shaman/curandera, represents an actual vocation, that of a healer or spiritual leader, a role with a useful and important function in an authentic culture. The role of the shaman and that of the curandera are often indistinguishable. Both can resort to dreams and visions for help and guidance; both practice medical, magical, and spiritual arts. A specialist in the use of spells and incantations as well as herbal remedies, the shaman is believed to have the power to change her or his human form into that of an animal or spirit (see discussion of shamanism in chapter 8 herein). The curative practices of a curandera are intertwined with religious beliefs and respect for nature. Disharmony and imbalance cause a disruption of health; healing is a return to oneness and harmony with nature.

These alternative healing values have endured for centuries and continue to provide contemporary answers to age-old questions. Bless Me, Ultima demonstrates that myth criticism and a culturally specific approach to a work of literature need not be mutually exclusive. Anaya's novel is historically relevant and magical, both ancient and contemporary.