In bless me, last Rudolfo Anaya tells a classic coming-of-age story by weaving together the symbolism of the ancient world, particularly the archetypes of nature, with the ritual traditions of the Catholic Church in a New Mexico town near the end of World War II. These symbols connect to each other with such historical force that together they give depth to a story that becomes not only Antonio Marez’s story of growing up in the Southwest in 1944, but also one that reaches back to the beginning of time and it becomes universally an archetypal motif. for the humanity
The sun and the moon
Although all the characters contribute to the cohesion of the novel, the story belongs to Antonio, who is seven years old when the story begins, and to Ultima, the healer who was present at Antonio’s birth and who has now come to live with her husband. family. in her remaining years. Although Antonio, or Tony, has two older sisters at home, he also has three brothers who have been serving their country abroad during the war and have returned home. Tony’s father is a Marez, a man whose traditions cling to the land, the plain, the great grassy, almost treeless plain where a man can ride a horse and enjoy the camaraderie of his wandering friends, seeking freedom in this open field. His wife is Luna, a family of farmers who love the rich land by the river, the roots and the tradition of living according to the cycles of the moon. The sun and the moon have joined, but is it a holy marriage of heaven and earth?
Influence of the Feminine Principle
Tony’s father wants him to follow the path of Marez, but his mother prays every day for Tony to become a farmer-priest and continue the path laid out by the Luna family. Her mother, María Luna, embodies the feminine principle associated with her name, clinging to the power of cyclical time, and her source of strength comes from that lunar Queen of Heaven, the Virgin of Guadalupe, before whose statue she he kneels every day. The Virgin is the Moon Goddess, the weaver and spinner of the thread of destiny, and it is to her that Mary implores for the destiny of her son in the Catholic Church. It is no coincidence that San Antonio is the patron saint of the poor, because María Luna prays that the fate of her son Tony is also worthy of sanctity, a priest without praise. The matriarchal influence surrounding Tony becomes even stronger when Ultima arrives.
Questioning the matriarchal world
Antonio develops a bond with Ultima the moment he enters her home, addressing her by her first name instead of the respectful one. Great, and his mother scolds him for this breach. But Ultima recognizes this connection between them and takes Tony with her every day to collect the plants and herbs he will use to cure her. He learns from her as he speaks softly to the plants he takes from her, explaining to them why he must take their roots from the ground. She teaches him that all of nature has a spiritual life, a presence. As Tony thrives in this matriarchal world of his mother, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Ultima, he begins to question his mother’s and Ultima’s spiritual beliefs, torn between which is the true belief, and then discovers the spiritual presence of the golden carp. of his friend Samuel.
the golden carp
It’s bad luck to catch the big carp that summer floods wash down the river. Like the great fish that fight against the current to reclaim their abode and not be trapped, Tony fights for the evolution of his own spirit. Samuel tells Tony the story of an ancient god who loved the people of the land so much that he turned them into carp instead of killing them for their sins. As the story evolves into a parallel to his own Catholicism, he learns that the god who loved the people turned into a fish, the golden carp, in order to take care of his people. Tony is confused about who is right: God, the Virgin, or the goldfish.
Last, Healer
When Tony watches Ultima heal her family with her magical cures, he wonders if she, too, is stronger than the church and its saints. When Maria’s brother Lucas suddenly becomes very ill, it is feared that one of Tenorio Trementina’s daughters has cursed him for stumbling into his witchcraft, the family asks Ultima to use her power as a healer to cure him. . Medicine and the Catholic Church have not been successful. They accept the condition of Ultima: when someone manipulates destiny, a chain of events is set in motion over which they have no control. They must be willing to accept this reality. They do so and Grandpa pays Ultima $40 in silver-silver typifying the lunar feminine principle once again, to cure her son Lucas.
The good is stronger than evil
Ultima’s requests for supplies and reassurance are met, but she also requires Tony’s help because, she says, her first name is Juan—John as in Saint John and John the Baptist—whose name means graced by God. Tony watches his rituals, his dying uncle’s bath, the burning of incense, the ingestion of the herbal potion, and the long hours of waiting. He knows that he is in the midst of evil but he is not afraid. Ultima calms his fears: “Good is always stronger than evil. The smallest good can face all the powers of evil in the world and will emerge triumphant.” Tony will strengthen the good that she can do because he has the grace of God, a concept that is aligned with her Catholicism.
Before Ultima forces the cure down Lucas’s throat, she sculpts three dolls out of her magical oils and fresh black clay. She dresses them up and lets Lucas breathe on them, and then she dips three pins in oil and sticks them into the dolls. Tony doesn’t fully understand what Ultima has done until later, when two of Trementina’s daughters are killed. He is confused by his power which seems to be one with God’s and yet greater than him.
Narcissus, Dionysian life and death
Tony’s friend Samuel tells Cico about the goldfish. When Samuel leaves to herd sheep with his father, Cico takes Tony to see the goldfish coming, but on the way they stop at the house of Narcissus, a Dionysian figure who gets drunk in the spring and plants at night in the morning light. Moon. When he is out and the two children slip into his hidden garden, Tony understands what Cico means when he says, “The garden is like Narcissus, it’s drunk.” Tony is amazed at the fecundity of this moonlit garden, but out of fear or perhaps superstition, he won’t partake of the bounty.
Narciso tries to warn Ultima of Tenorio’s intention to kill her in retaliation for the supposed curse he has placed on his dying second daughter. Returning home in the snow after rehearsing for the school Christmas pageant, Tony secretly follows him. When Tony’s brother Andrew is unable to part with Rosie’s notorious house to help out, the elderly Narcissus must go himself and Tony continues to follow him. Tenorio shoots Narciso, who lies dying under the juniper tree. Though Tony is confused about his role in the Catholic Church, he makes the sign of the cross over Narcissus and takes confession from him, acting as the priest his family hopes he will convert. Succumbing to pneumonia, Tony dreams of the pervasiveness of evil in his town as everything in him dies violently and burns as the goldfish swallows everything and shines as bright as a new sun.
Emptiness: Where is God?
Now it’s time for Tony to study his catechism with the other kids at church in preparation for his first communion, but he still wonders if the golden carp is more powerful than the God of his Catholic Church. He wonders if the Virgin Mary or the golden carp rule in the absence of God. On Easter Sunday, when Tony takes the host for the first time, he prays for answers to his question: why is there evil, death and torture? He just feels empty. He thinks: “The God he was looking for so much was not there”, and then he confesses to his teacher that growing up is not easy. He tells her, “Ultima says that a man’s destiny must unfold like a flower.”
Once again, Tony witnesses Ultima’s healing power as she performs rituals to lift a curse from Tony’s father’s friend, Tellez. That night, Tony still hasn’t received any communication from God. He asks, what really is the power of God? Cico tells him that he must choose between the God of the church and the golden carp. As they watch the majesty of the divine carp swimming in the stream, they decide that his friend Florence, who couldn’t take her first communion because she didn’t confess his non-existent sins, has earned the right to witness the golden carp for himself. . However, when they go looking for him, they discover that he has drowned in a swimming accident under the Blue Lake.
Tony dreams again, and in this dream everything he believes in dies, even Ultima and the goldfish. Distraught, they send him to his aunt and uncle in Los Puerto to learn about farming. Before leaving, Ultima says, “Life is filled with sadness when a boy becomes a man.” Tony asks his father if he could make a new religion. Tony’s father, Gabriel Marez, explains to his son that understanding does not come from God. He comes from experiencing life, and it takes a lifetime to gain this understanding. He notices Tony’s confusion about religion and healing, in particular, and tells him that Ultima is not afraid because he “has a sympathy for people, so complete that he can touch their souls and heal them.” Tony is strengthened that summer by everything that has happened to him.
Ultima and the Owl: Antonio’s Blessing
But Tenorio’s second daughter dies and in his madness, he first tries to kill Tony, who escapes him, and then goes to Guadalupe to find and kill Ultima. Instead, Tenorio shoots the owl, and as he points the rifle at Tony, Pedro, who is Tony’s uncle, kills him with his pistol. Ultima, whose life is connected with the life of the owl, is dying. She whispers to Tony that she is like the owl, “flying off to a new place, a new time.” Before she dies, he asks for her blessing. “His hand touched my forehead and his last words were: ‘I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, seek me out in the evenings when the The wind is soft and the owls sing in the hills. I will be with you-“
Tony buries the owl under the juniper tree in the moonlight, a symbol of his mother’s family. He covers the owl with the land of the plain, home and symbol of his father. Whether or not Tony has the maturity to understand the totality of the blessings as well as the evil that accompanies his initiation rites, however, he has been deeply touched by the feminine archetypes of the moon, the three destinies, the river and the fish, the owl and the juniper, and the cyclical changes around him so that he remembers Ultima’s advice with greater understanding and wisdom as he becomes a man: “Take the experiences of life and build strength into from them, not weakness”.