Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Antonio's loss of innocence
When we were child, the days used to
be long, we used to be kind and amorous, we used to laugh without reason and
shame, and nothing bothered us. Then we grow up, we are expose to the society,
we hear lies, we feel sadness, we feel shame and we get irritate faster. Until
we get a mature age to understand and accept the life just how it is. What I
mean is that People live changing constantly. They change mentally and physically whether
for good or bad. There is one certainly thing in life, it’s the fact that you
will change in numerous ways throughout your life. In short, change is
unavoidable. In Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, Antonio undertakes a rough
adventure to seek his true faith and his beliefs. He witnesses the death of Lupito,
a veteran who became crazy for the war. Thus, Ultima’s death, a very
appreciated woman by Antonio and his frustration for the evil which is
represented by Narciso and his daughters the Trementinas. These events relieve Antonio’s
innocence but he gains maturity and wisdom to confront the world.
“The pain and sadness seemed to spread to my soul,
and I felt for the first time what the grown-ups call, la tristesa de la vida.”
(59) First day of school, Antonio’s classmates make him feel embarrassed for
his food. He snaked around the back of the school, against the wall he tries to
eat but he is too upset to do so. He finds himself all alone unable to go with
his Mon. He is comparing his sadness as an adult’s sadness. Antonio also
experience new emotions like melancholy, but the emotion here isn't the point.
The point is that he recognizes it as an emotion that only grown-ups go
through. In essence, Antonio has started to feel and respond like an adult.
It's not a happy thing, but it's the beginning of change in his life.
“God! Why did Lupito die? Why do you allow the evil of
the Trementinas? Why did you allow Narciso to be murdered when he was doing
well?” (221) Antonio’s first communion, he has already received the host in his
mouth. He is waiting for God to talk to him and answer all of his questions but
God never answer him. Antonio feels he has failed to find and understand God
since he cannot find the reason why God doesn’t punish Tenorio and his
daughters. His innocence slowly fades away as he witnesses incidents like the
murder of Lupito and Narcisco. He can’t find consolation in God therefore he
began to question him. Antonio must learn to draw his own conclusions and to
think for himself. He starts to view the world as cruel and merciless, not the
genial, awesome world he has seen before crashing with reality.
“He had saved my life, and perhaps if we had come
earlier we would have saved Ulitma. But it was better no to think that way.
Ultima said to take life’s experiences and build strength from them, not
weakness.”(261) Antonio is in the hills, next to a forked juniper tree where he
is burning Ultima’s owl. He is talking to himself about what just happen; Ulitma
was murdered by Tenorio who was killed by Pedro. The way Antonio is expressing
his thoughts shows how mature he has become. He is able to accept Ultima’s
death and his family actions without judge them. He intelligently decides to
grow to hand on knowledge and enlightenment from all the spiritual forces that
he has been experiencing and, as Ultima has taught him, become a stronger,
better person as a result.
Antonio becomes mature and in doing so discovers the horrible
evil in the world. Antonio gains to be emotionally mature by crying about
deaths to staying tough when he sees the decease, intellectually mature by
showing how smart he becomes and physically mature by changing maybe in size
and strength. In exchange he loses his innocence, the way he view the world
will be as an adult and no more as a child. What we can learn from Antonio’s
experience is that no matter how rough our lives may be, we should remind in
our senses and overcome them by taking good decisions and not let one go for
the emotions. In Antonio’s situation, he decided to stop being scare and feel
bad, and instead learn from his experiences and be mature to do so.