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

that as a curandera she is there to help and heal those in need; she is constantly called a witch and associated with evil even though she does good. When Tenorio goes to Gabriel for Ultima so that he can exercise his punishment because he believes she is responsible for his daughter’s death, he feeds the fear of Ultima that the men at his bar have of her even though they go to her for help, they don’t fully understand her power.
Anaya also writes about the men in Antonio’s life but they are not seen in a positive light like Maria and Ultima. Over time, Gabriel’s character does develop and it seems that he becomes a better person; he does protect Ultima when Tenorio and his men try to take her but Antonio’s uncle does not help his father defend Ultima. However, he realizes that he was wrong and says, “’It does not decrease my shame to say I was a coward last night. We all were. We took our father’s wish as an excuse. Believe me, my faith is bound with that woman for saving Lucas. The next time, and God grant there isn’t a next time, I will not shirk my duty to her” (Anaya 144). Antonio muses, “Yes, I had stood by Ultima. And so had my father, and Narciso, and the owl. We would all have slashed out, like the owl, to protect Ultima. It was not easy to forgive men like Tenorio. Perhaps that is why God could not forgive; He was too much like man” (144). Antonio understands the faults that men have, mostly because they give in to their machismo. Antonio has become so influenced by Ultima and his mother that he begins to question his belief in God. His doubts about God are further expressed when Antonio says after receiving the Holy Communion, “I called again to the God that was within me, but there was no answer. Only emptiness. I turned and looked at the statue of the Virgin. She was smiling, her outstretched arms offering forgiveness to all…The God I so eagerly sought was not there, and the understanding I thought to gain was not there” (Anaya 234-35).
The power that Antonio felt God should have and the power Gabriel should have had over his family is not aligned with the patriarchy beliefs of the Chicano culture; there is a shift in power and at this moment in Antonio’s life, the power is in Ultima’s hands. Consequently, he hopes that the God he is searching for can be found in the Virgin Mary. Antonio sees God as intolerant and callous but views the Virgin Mary as forgiving and compassionate; he muses about this while on a drive with his uncle, “’Why couldn’t there be a god who would never punish his people, a god who would be forgiving all of the time? Perhaps the Virgin Mary was such a god? She had forgiven the people who killed her son. She always forgave. Perhaps the best god would be like a woman, because only women really knew how to forgive” (Anaya 143).
The Virgin Mary as a god that is all forgiving is a perfect blend of the Chicana beliefs.

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

woman.
The characterization of Ultima is significant from a feminist angle because compared to the other female characters, she is more developed and she is the exception to the rule of her patriarchal community.

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

culture.
In addition to Ultima being a powerful figure in Antonio’s life, there is the presence of her owl that symbolizes her supernatural being and further extends the power that Ultima, a woman, probably shouldn’t possess during this time, the mid to late 1940s. In Western culture, the owl is connected to wisdom and it is also connected to the Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. It is usually the case that those that are considered wise are the ones that hold positions of power. After an analysis of Bless Me, Ultima it can be noted that Ultima is wise, powerful, and held in high esteem by those closely associated with her that is why it is no surprise that an owl is her symbolic form. Even Tenorio, the villain of this story, understands the significance of the owl and its connection to Ultima when he exclaims, “It is the owl that is the spirit of the old witch!” (Anaya 269). Ultima later dies shortly after Tenorio kills the owl.
The owl is also associated with evil in Mexican American folklore. According to an entry in Rafaela G. Castro’s Chicano Folklore: A Guide to the Folktales, Traditions, Rituals and Religious Practices of Mexican Americans, “Witches often take the form of an owl…The hoot of an owl is an evil omen…In other parts of the Southwest owls are sometimes known as lechuzas. A lechuza is a woman who has sold her soul to the devil and becomes an owl by night. Only a woman can become a lechuza” (26-27). When the owl arrives when Ultima comes to live with Antonio’s family, he is at first scared of it because it is also, in Native American mythology, associated with death and is considered a bad omen. However, after forming a bond with Ultima he realizes that the owl offers protection to him and his family:
the owl was Ultima’s spirit. It had come with Ultima, and as men brought evil to our hills the owl had hovered over us, protecting us. It had guided me home from Lupito’s death, it had blinded Tenorio the night he came to hurt Ultima, the owl had driven away the howling animals the night we cured my uncle, and it had been there when the misery of the Tellez family was removed. The owl had always been there. It sang to me the night my brothers came home from the war, and in my dreams I sometimes saw it guiding their footsteps as they stumbled through the dark streets of their distant cities (Anaya 271-72).
To further support that the owl signifies Ultima’s integrity, An Van Hecke states in an article, “We can see that, in this novel, the Virgin appears as an ally of the curandera Ultima. In his dreams, Antonio sees Ultima's owl lifting the Virgin on her wings (Bless me 15). It is as if they became one figure. Both the Virgin and the curandera stand for everything that is good in opposition to everything that is evil.”
Even when Ultima dies she claims that she only meant for good things to happen, “My work was to do good…I was to heal the sick and show them the path of goodness. But I was not to interfere with the destiny of any man. Those who wallow in evil and brujeria cannot understand this. They create a disharmony that in the end reaches out and destroys life” (Anaya 275). In Antonio’s eyes, there is no way that Ultima could have been evil, she “personified goodness…She was the only person I had ever seen defeat evil where all else had failed” (Anaya 270). Her power, despite the opinion of those that feared her because she was different than the women of her time, could not be denied.
Bless Me, Ultima has important and powerful women, Ultima and Maria, who break free from the traditional role that women were expected to play in the 1940s and in the Mexican patriarchal community in which they lived. The novel was written in the 1960s, during the Chicano Movement and Rudolfo Anaya was clearly inspired by the events unfolding because he created female characters that broke free from the mold and helped a young boy complete his search for self-identity while growing up. The details Antonio shares of his unlikely mentor, Ultima, and Maria, his headstrong mother, show the importance of Chicana women; they do not need to remain in position of marianismo, the good girl any longer; they can be outspoken, wise, and brave. They no longer had to remain submissive or helpless as a result of the machismo that was evident but could be chipped away. Despite Antonio feeling uncertain of his mother’s dream of him becoming a priest and his father’s desire for him to roam free like the vaqueros he is able to create a new vision, as a result of Ultima’s guidance; he eventually makes his own decisions and does so with the guidance of these strong women.