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

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