Bless Me, Ultima \"Ultima Came

Bless Me, Ultima

"Ultima came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes...The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mystery into my living blood," (1). The magic of childhood is one of the recurring themes in Rudolpho Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima. However, when Anthony begins school he learns quickly that childhood can a tumultuous and challenging time. Anthony proves himself to be the "man of learning" as Ultima predicts him to be, but his classmates also make Anthony painfully aware of the role of ethnicity on social integration and identity formation. The school children in Bless Me Ultima represent the dominant culture, especially its suppression of individuality and diversity.

Through the school children, Anthony first encounters the conflict between his culture and the dominant Anglo society. Moreover, Anthony had already been struggling with the multiple facets of his own ethnic identity. Even before Anthony started school, Ultima had a tremendous impact on him and his self-concept. Anthony's internal struggles are later played out in the school. His awareness of being different and distinct from the majority of his classmates is enhanced when at the end of the school year Anthony is allowed to skip a grade. Skipping a grade symbolizes Anthony's being detached from the majority of his peers. He learns to rely on those friends who think independently and who do not readily conform to the Anglo social norms. Language remains the main barrier between Anthony and his classmates. However, language is only one facet of Anthony's identity. Even if Anthony spoke English, his radical ideas about religion, the self, and the universe would make it difficult for him to communicate with his classmates. Language only serves as a reminder that Anthony is qualitatively different from most other children his age.

Not all of the school children represent the dominant culture and conformity. For example, Cico is one of Anthony's friends whose vision of the world enhances diversity and independence. Cico becomes a key figure in Anthony's life, especially when he shows Anthony the golden carp. Soon after viewing the magical fish, Cico and Anthony return to the school yard where they are taunted by the other children. This scene, in Chapter Once (11), underscores the differences between the school children and Anthony. Anthony appreciates the magical universe that Ultima and Cico have helped unfold for him. The fact that the other school children do not appreciate alternative points-of-view teaches Anthony a lesson more difficult than any he will learn in class: People can be cruel.

The school children are in some ways portrayed as victims of their own culture. Unlike Anthony and Cico, the other children do not think independently. They base their thoughts, ideas, and opinions on those that are propagated by the dominant culture. For example, children like Ernie and Horse tease Anthony in Chapter 11. They tease Anthony partly to create a social hierarchy that mirrors the one in mainstream American culture. White people and their Christian culture are at the top of that social hierarchy. Yet the school children also tease Red for being a Protestant without fully understanding the theological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. The school children demonstrate that in the real world there is little room for people who think outside of the dominant culture paradigm.

Children like Ernie serve as ambassadors for the dominant culture. The children have, in fact, inherited the dominant culture's fear that people like Anthony are social and cultural threats. Ernie's upbringing has trained him to be prejudiced against and afraid of difference. If Ernie cultivated independent thought he might have reached different conclusions about what Anthony and Cico represent, and how their challenging traditional beliefs may be ultimately a healthy act. It is only because most of the other adults in the town feel threatened by people like Ultima that Ernie and the school children find it easy to ostracize Anthony. Ernie and the other school children view Anthony as an outsider because of differences in language, religion and culture. Their attitudes and actions mirror those of the dominant culture as a whole. Therefore, Anaya presents the school children as a microcosm of American society.

Because he is treated largely as an outcast, Anthony develops a stronger sense of purpose and personal identity. If he had easily conformed to the dominant culture by being accepted by his classmates, Anthony might never had developed the will to question the status quo. Anthony is determined to probe what Ultima represents in his life, and what wisdom she and Cico possess. The development of personal identity and independent thought is a major theme of Bless Me, Ultima. The school children promote Anthony's self-development. Their negative stimuli become catalysts for Anthony's psychological growth. He can see directly why it may be important to challenge his parents as well as the restrictive Catholic religion.

The school children in Bless Me, Ultima also represent the conflicts between Anthony's parents. Florence is a powerful character in the novel because of his vocal atheism and mature awareness of religion being a social tool. Anthony can therefore reconcile his own doubts about Catholicism via his schoolmate. One of Anthony's core struggles in Bless Me, Ultima is the desire to please his mother and his inability to fully embrace Catholicism. At the same time, Anthony finds it difficult to fully fit into his father's rough vaquero world. The school children as a whole represent conformity, but Anthony can also see how some of his friends like Florence and Cico are able to straddle the line between total conformity and social isolation. Social isolation and mental illness are shown to be common consequences of nonconformity and independent thinking. For example, Jason Chavez struggles socially because of his unwillingness to totally ascribe to the dominant culture's social norms.