Analysis Of Ultima By Gloria Anzaldúa

Ultima is a Catholic who is also a practicing curandera; she is like a hybrid; something that women of Anaya’s time and culture had to be, they fought for their rights as women and also for the rights of their raza. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s essay “La Concencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” she claimed, “la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another” (78). This describes Ultima and her role within her society; she has to blend being Catholic and being a curandera to create a new role no matter how misunderstood it may be.

One of the opposing forces that Ultima faces is a result of people misunderstanding her role in the community; the fear they have is because they do not understand

Maria frequently prays to the Virgin Mary and Antonio prays to Her with Maria; it is almost as if Maria too knows the power She possesses; the Virgin Mary is the middle ground that Antonio desires and ultimately decides he will follow, his devotion to her is evident when he says:

There was no one I loved more than the Virgin…It was hard to say the rosary because you had to kneel for as long as the prayers lasted, but I did not mind because while my mother prayed I fastened my eyes on the statue of the Virgin until I thought that I was looking at a real person, the mother of God, the last relief of all sinners…God was not always forgiving. He made laws to follow and if you broke them you were punished. The Virgin always forgave. God had power. He spoke and the thunder echoed through the skies. The Virgin was full of a quiet, peaceful love. (Anaya 47)

After all that he has been through (witnessing the deaths of two men, his friend’s drowning, and seeing the Golden Carp), Antonio desires to meet the Virgin, just as she appeared to Diego in Mexico, because he feels that She will be the answer he needs and She will guide him the way Ultima has guided him through his life so far. The values of the patriarchy have failed Antonio and he now seeks his answers from a

There are other female characters in addition to Ultima and Maria, but they are not as developed and stay in the background through much of the story. For example, Antonio's sisters, Deborah and Theresa are raised to be good wives and mothers, fulfilling traditional women’s roles; and then there is Rosie and the prostitutes who work for her, they are there to entertain and please the men in town; finally, Tenorio's daughters, who are brujas, curse those that scorn them. According to Montye Fuse in his article "Culture, Tradition, Family: Gender Roles in Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima,” “Readers might expect Deborah and Theresa to occupy a more significant place in that they grow up together with the protagonist. However, the two sisters, [are] Barely seen and rarely heard in a man's world, these sisters convey believable depictions of female invisibility within a patriarchal Mexican family.” But Ultima and Maria are there to show that women can be in the foreground and be dominant figures in their