LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Student Research Project

Sergio Santos
May 7, 2003
Dr. White
Seminar in Minority Literature 

Binary Oppositions and  Balance in Bless Me, Ultima

Dichotomies are plentiful within Bless Me, Ultima’s narrative.  Rudolfo Anaya places his protagonist, Antonio Márez, in a world of extremes and opposites: the Márez bloodline vs. the Luna bloodline, Mexican culture vs. American, English vs. Spanish, good vs. evil, etc.  Although there are many divisions in the narrative, the dominant one lies within Antonio’s family itself.  This familial opposition provides the tension that will ultimately mold the young Antonio’s identity as a man.  The outcome of this identity is something that is never made obvious throughout the novel as the ending never shows Antonio as a grown man and what he does with the development he undergoes in the story.  What the text does provide is the character of Ultima.  Ultima is the union of the novel’s extremes and opposites.  In contrast to everything else that Anaya’s fictional world provides, Ultima is the perfect balance of everything serves as Antonio’s guide in the text.  She becomes a model of perfection to emulate and Antonio develops into her pupil.  The importance of Antonio being Ultima’s student lies in that the balance necessary to creating harmony in Antonio’s disparate world is crucial not only to the plight of Chicanos in North American culture, but to any minority culture that sees itself forced to assimilate into the dominant culture.  Bless Me, Ultima’s message in the end becomes a universal message

            The first chapter of Bless Me, Ultima sets the tone for the book’s tension as it  contains the first dream sequence in which Antonio describes a dream about the dream he has about own birth.  The author first presents the mother’s side of Antonio’s family to the reader:

This one will be a Luna, the old man said, he will be a farmer and keep our customs and traditions.  Perhaps God will bless our family and make the baby a priest.

And to show their hope they rubbed the dark earth of the river valley on the baby’s forehead, and they surrounded the bed with the fruits of their harvest so the small room smelled of fresh green chile and corn, ripe apples and peaches, pumpkins and green beans (5).

An abrupt introduction to the Márez side of the boy’s family interrupts the serene and joyous moment that the Luna families experience, as the vaqueros surround the house with shouts and gunshots.

Gabriel, they shouted, you have a fine son!  He will make a fine vaquero!  And they smashed the fruits and vegetables that surrounded the bed and replaced them with a saddle, horse blankets, bottles of whiskey, a new rope, bridles, chapas, and an old guitar.  And they rubbed the stain of earth from thebaby’s forehead because man was not to be tied to the earth but free upon it (6).

Margarite Fernández Olmos claims that this particular scene represents both families’ frantic attempt “to take hold of the placenta hoping to control the baby’s destiny by disposing of it in their own allegorical fashion.”  Fernández Olmos furthermore explains that “The Lunas would bury it in the field, tying the boy to the earth”, while “the Márez family wish to burn it and scatter the ashes freely to the winds of the llano” (44).  This opposition leaves Antonio in the middle; the boy, however, is not alone in this state of ambivalence.  The dream sequence also introduces to the reader, Ultima, who in this scene puts a halt to the push/pull tension that occurs between the two families:

Cease! she cried, and the men were quiet.  I pulled this baby into the light of life, so I will bury the afterbirth and the cord that once linked him to eternity.  Only I will know his destiny (6).

Fernández Olmos describes this family tension as a dichotomy that, “Antonio must find a balance to” (43).  Ultima embodies the balance that Fernández Olmos speaks of and it is thus that she becomes a mentor to the young Antonio.  “As young Antonio’s guide and mentor, her teaching not only bring him into contact with a mysical, primordial world but also with a culture—his own Hispanic/Indian culture—that he must learn to appreciate if he is ever to understand truly himself and his place within society” (Fernández Olmos 41).

            An exploration of the teachings of Aristotle proves useful in attempting to better understand what being such a balance between oppositions suggests about Ultima’s character and role in the text.  Every narrative has a telos (the dictionary definition of the word is: “an ultimate end” (telos 1190)); this, however, does not only apply to the fictional narrative.  An example of a telos is a man planting a flower garden.  Why does he plant this flower garden?  He does it so that his wife will have something pleasing to look at in the morning outside of the window.  Ultimately, he plants the garden to please his wife so that she will not be so grumpy in the mornings.  His telos then becomes something akin to avoid being yelled at.  All actions generally have a telos within their own narratives.  The example provided is most likely akin to a lower type of telos (as deemed by Aristotle) which ties into degrees of virtue.  The type of telos that Bless Me, Ultima pursues is of the highest in that it seeks for Antonio to know how to live a good life and find stable ground amidst the opposition that surrounds him as its ultimate end.

            Aristotle states that: “It is thought that every activity, artistic or scientific, in fact every deliberate action or pursuit, has for its object the attainment of some good.  We may therefore assent to the view which has been expressed that ‘the good’ is ‘that at which all things aim’” (25).  Aristotle further explains that:

If there is an end which as moral agents we seek for its own sake, and which is the cause of our seeking all the other ends – if we are not to go on choosing one act for the sake of another, thus landing ourselves in an infinite progression with the result that desire will be frustrated and ineffectual – it is clear that this must be the good (26).

Knowledge of this good, he states, is of great advantage to conducting one’s life for; “Are we not more likely to hit the mark if we have a target?” (26).  Ultima’s role in the text is to help Antonio attain this target and take control of his own destiny.  In reaching this target a mean must be established; there cannot be excess or deficiency.  Criticism of Aritotle’s work provides a fine example of a mean as it goes from applying the theory from mathematics to an example that applies to human beings in the form of athleticism and training:

For instance, if ten is too many and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object; for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; this is intermediate according to arithmetical proportion.  But the intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this is also perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little—too little for Milo [a famous Greek athlete], too much for the beginner in athletic exercises.  The same is true of running and wrestling.  Thus a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses this—the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us (Denise et al. 39-40).

As Antonio’s first dream sequence illustrates, Ultima partakes in being the intermediate that living a good life requires by acting as the mean between the opposing views of the family.  She does not fall on one side or the other avoiding excess and defect but instead falls temperately in the middle.

The beginning of the novel also physically establishes Ultima as an intermediate.  In the birth sequence Ultima buries the afterbirth; this physical action links her to the Luna’s who are “a people of the moon, tied to the land as farmers”.  This side of the family represents “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” (Fernández Olmos 43).  The imagery that Anaya chooses to describe Antonio’s first encounter with Ultima, as a seven year old boy contrasts, the burial imagery that associates her with the maternal side of the family. 

“Antonio,” she smiled.  She took my hand, and I felt the power of a whirlwind sweep around me.  Her eyes swept the surrounding hills and through them I saw for the first time the wild beauty of our hills and the magic of the green river (12).

The imagery lends itself more to the wildness and freedom of his father’s vaquero origins.  Fernández Olmos offers insight into the Márez tradition of the vaquero as well as the meaning of the actual name as he states:  “More than an occupation, it is a calling that has united his father and his paternal ancestors to the New Mexican plains, described as being as vast as the oceans. (Antonio’s father’s surname, Márez, derives from the Spanish word mar meaning the sea)” (43).  Although the tension within the opposing cultures of the two families forms the basis of the novel’s major conflict, Ultima’s intermediate role is not limited to only these divided forces. 

            Antonio’s description of Ultima’s owl draws attention to another of the novel’s dichotomies. 

I waited.  I was sure my father would get up and shoot the owl with the old rifle he kept on the kitchen wall.  But he didn’t, and I accepted his understanding.  In many cuentos I had heard the owl was one of the disguises a bruja took, and so it struck a chord of fear in the heart to hear them hooting at night.  But not Ultima’s owl.  Its soft hooting was like a song, and as it grew rhythmic it calmed the moonlit hills and lulled us to sleep.  Its song seemed to say that it had come to watch over us (13).

In this passage, a bruja, something that is usually associated with evil (as is evident by Antonio’s surprise in the passage), is instead associated with good.  This tension between good and evil is most prominently explored in Ultima’s dealings with the Trementia sisters.

            The Trementia sisters’ use of witchcraft affirms the view that Antonio has of it being something to be associated with evil.  The curse that they put on Antonio’s uncle provides room for an interesting dissection of how Ultima’s intermediate state allows her to employ witchcraft for the purpose of good instead of malice.  Antonio’s initial fear of brujas stems from the culture his people as a question from the boy discloses:

                        “But why didn’t they call you sooner?” I asked.

“The church would not allow your grandfather to let me use my powers.  The church was afraid that—” (97)

Ultima does not finish what she is saying but Antonio conjectures what she “would have said” (97).  “The Priest at El Puerto did not want the people to place much faith in the powers of la curandera.  He wanted the mercy and faith of the church to be the villagers’ only guiding light” (97).  In this scene another division occurs as Ultima’s supernatural powers and the Church collide.  Ultima, however, does not separate the two opposites as another exchange between her and Antonio demonstrates. 

After assuring Antonio that there is no need to fear men like Tenorio, Antonio asks, “And his daughters?”  Her response to his question is, “They are women who long ago turned away from God . . .” (98).  Although Ultima is a bruja she does not turn away from God the way the sisters do.  In fact “her spiritual approach is syncretic: it derives both from modern medicine and time-honored Native American curative practices, Christianity, and pagan traditions” (Fernández Olmos 47).  Ultima takes practices that normally run counter to one another and utilizes elements of all of them to create a perfect harmony.

            At the tender age of seven Antonio already exhibits traits akin to Ultima’s.  A prime example of Antonio maintaining a balance is in his dreaming.  The conscious and unconscious world is at odds in this instance, yet Antonio utilizes both in his attempt to reconcile the oppositions that his initial dream carries.   His dreams “dreams provide both a structural and thematic framework for the novel as they illustrate past events and suggest future conflicts” (Fernández Olmos 43)  His birth dream is the perfect example of this structural and thematic framework as it is an instant in the past that gives birth to the conflict that is at the heart of Antonio’s anxiety throughout the course of Bless Me, Ultima.

             “What Antonio cannot face or understand on a conscious level is deciphered in his dreams”, (45) states Fernández Olmos.  Furthermore, Antonio’s “doubts and uncertainties are echoed on the subconscious level and occasionally are resolved there as well” (45).  Antonio’s “reactions to these events as expressed in his dreams are the most revealing insights into the growth and evolution of the character; they provide the thematic framework of his gradual transformation” (45).  Chapter fourteen presents an example of how Antonio resolves things in his dreams as his brothers appear in this particular sequence. 

Oh, help us, sweet brother, help us.  We followed neither the laws of God or of your pagan god, and we paid no heed to the magic of your Ultima.  We have sinned in every way.  Bless us, brother, bless us and forgive us (174).

Their statement in this passage represents their collective deficiency as they admit to following nothing.  The brothers come nowhere near creating a balance in their own lives.  Antonio resolves, in the dream, that he cannot help his brothers: “My heart was wrenched at the sight of their flagellation, but I was helpless” (174).  The brothers thus remain lost in the dream and the next chapter marks Andrew’s departure from the family.  As Andrew departs with the other two brothers Antonio reflects on the situation: “I waved goodbye to them with some misgivings.  I wondered if I would ever really know my brothers, or would they remain but phantoms of my dreams” (185).  The conclusion that Antonio comes to in the dream (that he cannot help his brothers) now becomes a part of reality creating a union or bridge between the conscious and unconscious world.  This union is a part of the boy’s “gradual transformation” that Fernández Olmos speaks of but as chapter fifteen reveals it is a transformation that Ultima is always a part of.

Later I asked Ultima, “Did I talk about Andrew when I was in the

fever?”

“Your blood is tied to the blood of your brothers,” she answered, “and you spoke your dreams and love for them, but you did not reveal Andrew’s secret—” (178)

Antonio expresses relief at Ultima’s understanding of his anxiety.  Even in his dreams, Ultima is with him to help guide him along.

            Towards the end of the novel the balance that Antonio gains from Ultima becomes infectious within the community.  The climactic conversation with his father exhibits this spreading of balance in the story as they discuss the summer he is to spend with his uncles.  “I did not understand his willingness to send me to my mother’s brothers”, and so Antonio decides to ask him.  His father responds that it does not matter who he goes with.  This statement is shocking when juxtaposed to the novel’s beginning.  Gabriel continues to explain: “We have been at odds all of our lives, the wind and the earth.  Perhaps it is time we gave up the old differences—”.  It is here that Antonio comes to the novel’s definitive conclusion, “Then maybe I do not have to be just Márez, or Luna, perhaps I can be both” (247).  His father affirms his conclusion.  What his father then says a few lines further provides an interesting image.  “Ay, every generation, every man is part of his past.  He cannot escape it, but he may reform the old materials, make something new” (247).  Gabriel’s image is one of regeneration. 

            Ramón Saldívar cites one critic as noting that “Bless Me, Ultima chronicles the constructions of ‘a new life,’ offering as its ‘message’ an ideology of ‘regeneration’ activated through an ‘adaptation to circumstances, an invention of a style of life, and an ethnic revindication.’” (106).  Gabriel’s statement about reform supports such a reading as well as Ultima and Antonio’s collective role in Bless Me, Ultima.  The duo “function as mediators, healing a community suffering from strife and disruption” (Fernández Olmos 48).  It is no coincidence that Ultima is a curandera which literally translates into “healer”.  The perfect balance that Ultima maintains and passes on to Antonio is what heals the opposing forces of the novel.

            Roberto Cantu states that Ultima’s death leaves her apprentice ready to confront the contingencies of a future that only he can decide (376).  Another critic similarly states that: “Her grave, whose secret celebrant he becomes, serves the novel in two ways: as a figuration of both his past and his future, his legacy and at the same time his destiny” (Lee 328).  Aristotle’s description of a sketch helps to further accentuate what her death leaves Antonio with: “But we must be content with that at this stage, for doubtless the proper way of going to work is to draw an outline and fill in the details afterwards – when the sketch is well done, anybody can finish the picture” (37).

Cantu notes that the surface of Anaya’s text shows little evidence of being about the socio-cultural struggle of the contemporary Chicano.  Nevertheless, there is an underlying sense in Bless Me, Ultima that perhaps is not as apparent upon a first reading, but that a second reading makes obvious; that indeed the novel does have a lot to do with the plight of the Chicano (376).  Cantu’s point is an accurate one in that although the novel is set in New Mexico the dominant theme is that of dissent within the family itself.  Assimilation of Chicanos into American culture is definitely a theme that is present, but it is an underlying theme and seemingly minor in comparison.  The school, Antonio’s brothers, the English language, are all things that are present in the text and even encompassed by the enormity of a World War, but they in fact become secondary as Anaya attempts to universalize the text.  Critics rightfully state that, “Anayas’s novel, while deliberately set within the social and geographical parameters of rural New Mexico, self-consciously strives to attain ‘universal’ significance” (Saldívar 104).  Just as Ultima’s character in the novel maintains a perfect balance in the novel, so too does the author yearn for the same type of balance in his narrative structure.  Saldívar makes note of Anaya’s structure as he comments on the text:

Its symbolic patterns, myth structures, and ideological system are drawn from the venerable traditions of Western European high culture.  Blending these traditions with indigenous belief, folk legend, myth, and poetically crafted scenes of local color, Anaya’s book creates a uniquely palatable amalgamation of old and new world symbolic structures. (104)

The method that goes into the structure of the novel matches the regeneration imagery that Antonio’s father brings to light towards the novel’s end. 

The novel’s message in the end is one of compromise, and an openness to change.  By making the Chicano struggle to adapt to North American culture a secondary theme, Anaya actually ends up emphasizing the universality of this plight.  He emphasizes the universality of this plight by demonstrating how binary oppositions exist everywhere, even in one’s own culture and family.  Assimilating into the dominant culture is henceforth no different than finding a mean or compromise in anything else, it then becomes a matter of regenerating the past to unite with the future and creating something new and balanced.  The novel ends with Antonio in possession of the knowledge that holds the key to his destiny but at the same time does not make clear what he does with that knowledge.  Just like Ultima leaves Antonio at the novels end, so does Anaya leave the reader but he leaves them with a sketch knowing full well that they are capable of finishing the picture.

Works Cited

Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima. Berkely: Warner Books, 1972.

Aristotle. The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nichomachean Ethics Translated. Trans. J.A.K. Thomson. London: Penguin Books, 1953.

Cantu, Roberto. “Degradación y regeneración en Bless Me Ultima: el chicano y la vida nueva.” The Identification and Analysis of Chicano Literature. Ed. Fransisco Jimenéz. New York: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1979.  374.

Denise, Theodore C., Sheldon P. Peterfreund, Nicholas P. White. Great Traditions In Ethics . 8^th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1996.

Fernández Olmos, Margarite. “Historical and Magical, Ancient and Contemporary: The World of Rudolfo A. Anaya’s Bless Me Ultima.” U.S. Latino Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers. Eds. Harold Augenbraum and Margarite Fernández Olmos. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 39.

Lee, A. Robert. “Chicanismo as Memory: The fictions of Rudolfo Anaya, Nash Candelaria, Sandra Cisneros, and Ron Arias.” Memory and Cultural Politics: New Approaches to American Ethnic Literatures. eds. Amritjit Singh, Josheph T. Skerrett, Jr., Robert E. Hogan. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. 320.

Saldívar, Ramón. Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Difference. Madison:The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.

 “telos.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. 1980.