Bless Me Ultima

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Bless Me Ultima (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Rudolfo A. Anaya
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Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 80

Sample

Rudolfo Anaya was born on October 30, 1937, in Pastura, New Mexico, the fifth of seven children. Anaya also had three half-siblings from his parents’ previous marriages. When Anaya was still very young, his family moved to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. When he was a teenager, his family moved again, this time to Albuquerque, where Anaya graduated from high school in 1956. He attended business school for two years and dropped out before finishing, but he graduated from the University of New Mexico a few years later. Anaya worked as a public school teacher in Albuquerque from 1963 to 1970. During that period, he married Patricia Lawless. Afterward, he worked as the director of counseling for the University of Albuquerque for two years before accepting a position as an associate professor at the University of New Mexico.

When Anaya was a freshman in college, he began writing poetry and novels. His wife encouraged him to pursue his literary endeavors, and over a period of seven years, he completed his first and best-known novel, Bless Me, Ultima. East Coast publishing houses rejected the novel repeatedly. Finally, in 1972, a group of Chicano publishers accepted his book. Bless Me, Ultima went on to win the prestigious Premio Quinto Sol award and is now considered a classic Chicano work.

Bless Me, Ultima is the story of a young boy’s coming-of-age within a cultural tapestry that includes Spanish, Mexican, and Native American influences, and in which many of the major cultural forces conflict with one another. The young boy, Antonio Márez, must navigate a number of conflicts—between farmers and cowboys, Spanish and indigenous peoples, and English-speaking and Spanish-speaking peoples—that collectively structured the cultural life in rural New Mexico during the 1940s. The novel is also semiautobiographical. Like Antonio’s parents, Anaya’s mother was the daughter of farmers and his father was a vaquero, or cowboy. In his teens, Anaya suffered a serious swimming injury that left him temporarily paralyzed. This incident appears in Bless Me, Ultima when Florence, Antonio’s friend, dies in a swimming accident. Like Antonio’s family, Anaya’s family respected the art of curanderismo, or folk medicine, which Ultima practices throughout the book. Anaya and his siblings moved between the Spanish- and English-speaking worlds, and they were raised in a devoutly Catholic home, like the Márez children were. And like Antonio’s brothers, Anaya’s brothers were fighting in World War II during most of his early childhood.

Anaya has become a prominent Chicano intellectual and writer since the publication of Bless Me, Ultima. He has given lectures at many colleges and has won several literary awards for his work. Over the years, he has demonstrated a strong commitment to helping new Chicano writers through the difficult and sometimes daunting process of getting their voices heard.

When Antonio Márez is almost seven years old, the old healer Ultima comes to stay with him and his family in their small house in Guadalupe, New Mexico. The family has taken in Ultima out of a respect for her healing powers, her knowledge of plant lore, and her long use of folk magic in service of the community. Though they have great respect for Ultima’s spirituality, the family, especially Antonio’s mother, is devoutly Catholic. Antonio’s father, Gabriel, is a former vaquero, or cowboy, who wandered the llano, the great plains of New Mexico. Antonio’s mother, María, is the daughter of farmers. Antonio’s parents now argue about their young son’s future; Gabriel hopes he will become a vaquero on the llano, and María hopes he will become a priest. When he was born, Ultima served as his midwife and buried his afterbirth. As a result, it is now thought that she alone knows what lies in Antonio’s future.

Antonio spends a happy time with Ultima, learning about plants and trees and helping her gather herbs on the llano. One night, his innocence is threatened when he witnesses the death of Lupito, a soldier who recently returned from World War II. Lupito is shot to death by a mob after he kills the sheriff in a moment of post-traumatic delirium. After seeing Lupito’s death, Antonio begins to wonder about sin, death, and hell. Antonio walks to church with Ultima the next morning, and she tells him that each person must make his or her own moral choices, must choose a set of values to use to understand the world.

That fall, after helping his mother’s brothers, the Lunas, with their harvest, Antonio begins school. María presses Ultima to reveal Antonio’s destiny, and she replies sadly that he will be a man of learning. The war ends, and Antonio’s brothers return home. Gabriel is overjoyed because he hopes the return of his older sons means that the family will at last be able to move to California, as he has longed to do. But the brothers are surly, restless, and traumatized by the war. Before long, they each leave home to pursue independent lives. Antonio struggles to understand the conflict between his father and his brothers, but like so many of the moral questions that trouble him, it is too complicated for him to grasp. His mother tells him that he will understand when he begins to take Communion, and he begins to look forward anxiously to the day he will be old enough to do so.

Antonio’s friend Samuel takes him fishing and tells him the story of the golden carp, a river god who looks out for mankind. Antonio is moved by the story, but he does not know how to reconcile it with his Catholic beliefs. His beliefs are challenged again when his uncle Lucas is cursed by the satanic Trementina sisters. The priest is unable to cure him, but Ultima, with Antonio’s help, is able to banish the curse. Antonio realizes that there is no way to explain Ultima’s powers within the worldview of the Catholic church.

Antonio goes to visit the garden of Narciso, the town drunk. Afterward, they go to see the golden carp. Antonio’s friend Cico tells him that only true believers can see the carp. Cico says that if the people cannot stop sinning, the carp will flood the land to rid it of humanity’s evil. Antonio wishes sadly that there were a god of forgiveness. He idolizes the Virgin . . .