Essays on Bless Me Ultima

Novel by Rudolfo Anaya

Pages: 262

Cover artist: Bernadette Vigil and Diane Luger

Antonio Márez The precocious protagonist of Bless Me, Ultima, Antonio is six years old at the beginning of the novel. Antonio is serious, thoughtful, and prone to moral questioning, and his experiences force him to confront difficult issues that blur the lines between right and wrong.

Bless Me, Ultima explores the difficulty of reconciling conflicting cultural traditions. In the end, Anaya suggests that a person can draw from several cultural traditions to forge a more complex and adaptable identity.

Bless Me, Ultima takes place in rural New Mexico, a place of colliding cultures and powerful landscapes, during the late forties, which was a time of colliding cultures, too. On every page the llano looms large as a wide-open space of wide-open possibilities.

Set in the small town of Guadalupe, New Mexico, just after World War II, Antonio Márez y Luna (Tony) tells his story from the memories of his adult self, who reflects on his growing up.