Bless Me Ultima Literary Analysis

“I could not tell him that I wanted the castle of the giants to be forever, that I wanted the goat path and the hill to be for always” (Anaya 143). Symbols of childhood are valuable because they lead to the continuation of a person into adulthood. As a child, one is innocent and oblivious to the wonders of the world around them, but they develop and learn as they age to maturity. Bless Me, Ultima is a novel centered around a young boy named Antonio, who grows and changes throughout the book, going from a boy to a man. Throughout the bildungsroman Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya uses the symbolism of the goat path – along with its cohesivity to childhood innocence – to portray that the transition to adulthood is an extensive journey gained

through unforeseeable experiences.
Throughout his novel, Anaya depicts the goat path as a comfort and constant in Antonio’s life when his brothers return from the war, stressing the innocence the brothers misplaced when they were away. For instance, Antonio had a dream where he saw his brothers at a brothel in his town. Antonio recalled that they “led me over the goat path, across the bridge, to the house of the sinful women” (Anaya 70). When Antonio left the goat path behind, it symbolized how he disregarded something innocent and guiltless. To continue, Antonio notices that his brothers had become adults when they returned, showing that traumatic experiences such as war can lead to the loss of childhood. In addition, Antonio’s father, Gabriel, reminds the brothers of when they had built their house together, and that Gabriel “‘would get off work on the highway in the afternoon, and far down the goat path’” he would “‘come and help’” (Anaya 184). The goat path represents the past, when Antonio and his brothers were young and possessed the purest form of innocence and childhood. Gabriel’s realization that the brothers had lost their determination to work hard contrasts to how the brothers had once acted in their childhood. This proves the impact the war made on the brothers’ conversion into adults.
In the novel, the goat path is a symbol of Antonio’s childhood as he goes through schooling, which is an astronomical milestone in his life. On the morning of Antonio’s first day of school, he thinks about how he “awoke with a sick feeling in my stomach” as he finally concluded that he “would take the goat path and trek into town for years and years of schooling” (Anaya 51). The mention of leaving the goat path to journey into school for his first time represents forsaking a part of his childhood and braving a whole new experience. Furthermore, his involvement will set him up for years of success in school and beyond, transitioning him from childhood to adulthood through this milestone. Similarly, when Antonio completes his first year of school, he notices that “I climb the hill, I race over the goat path, and I am home!” (Anaya 77). This expression of cheerfulness when Antonio completes school reveals how he is overjoyed at his long-awaited homecoming. This happiness is connected to racing over the goat path to signify that the path is his key to finding his way back to his childhood and the home he grew up in.
The goat path plays a role of safety and normality in his life as Antonio has recurring distressing experiences with the deaths of those he knows and loves.

In this case, Antonio witnesses the death of Narciso, the town drunk, and later tells his mother and Ultima, “’Beneath our juniper, on the goat path, he shot Narciso” (Anaya 172). This excerpt implies that when a disturbing experience such as death occurs on the goat path it has violated Antonio’s untouched innocence. Even under extreme duress, Antonio confesses that the path makes him feel safe, and Narciso’s death was an opposition to this mental security. This contributes to how his youth is slowly becoming out of his grasp and how he is being pressured into adulthood. Correspondingly, Antonio is in El Puerto when he encounteres Tenorio, his enemy, who had finally figured out how to kill Ultima. Antonio runs back to his home to save Ultima from certain death, yet he wonders, “Would I ever race like a kid again, a wild cabrito rattling the pebbles on the goat path; and would I ever wrestle the crazy Horse and wild Bones again?” (Anaya 257). Even as Antonio races to save a friend’s life, he dwells on his childhood, connecting it to the normality of memories spent with his friends and the goat path. Meanwhile, as Antonio witnesses numerous deaths – like the death of Ultima – he will continue to lose his innocence and youth

completely.
In Bless Me, Ultima, Anaya’s symbolization of the goat path portrays that the transition from child to adult is rewarded through countless experiences. The brothers’ loss of innocence, the milestone of Antonio’s schooling, and the traumatic experience of death all contribute to the growth and development of Antonio. Given these points, one must learn to shed their childhood and endure the path to adulthood through a widespread journey filled with various involvements. Finally, when Antonio has forgone many different experiences at the end of the novel, he recalls, “In a week I would be returning to school, and as always I would be running up the goat path and crossing the bridge . . . I would have to build my own dream out of those things that were so much a part of my childhood” (Anaya 261).