What Is The Theme Of Loss In Bless Me Ultima

Loss is a fundamental point of formation in the lives of many. Unlike many other forms of hardships, the loss of a loved one leaves what can feel like a herculean task of healing through grief. In loss, people can develop or regress into people that see the world in an entirely altered perspective, and become all but recognizable to those around them. In Bless Me Ultima, Antonio loses Narciso, Lupito, Florence, and Ultima and death and grief plagues his early life and his journey through the book. Each death has a way of shifting Antonio‘s perspective and the way he interacts with himself, other characters, and his idea of spirituality shows his development through the loss that he faces and how he steps into the character he is at the end

A good example of this is theater. Characters have to outwardly express how they feel through things such as verbalized monologues and asides, or dramatic gestures and facial expressions. However in books, you can get a unique insight into the characters mind and how they not only interact with their own thoughts but also how they end up outwardly expressing them. An example of this in Bless Me Ultima is Antonio’s dreams. Rudolfo Anya utilizes dreamscapes and dream sequences as a method of pushing the narrative and Antonio’s development forward. The evidence of dream usage in Bless me Ultima can be clearly seen after the death of Lupito, in which Antonio has a dream in which Lupito’s last words and death is used to torment him. This is shown to have affected him significantly throughout the rest of the book by making him question his faith, and in particular, his relationship with God. The events of this chapter directly preclude the struggles that he has with the Christian god, good, and

How these conversations themselves manifest and how they evolve throughout the story can depict Antonio’s journey of growth and development. An example that illustrates the divide between chapters one and two, and the rest of them and how his conversations with Ultima changed in both. In the first two chapters, Antonio takes on the role of a more passive learner. As he and Ultima walk through the hills and the llano collecting herbs, Antonio takes on a more passive role in his learning, not asking many questions and just following her lead. He states that “his soul grew under her carefully guidance” (Anaya 23), and when the events of the first death of the story occurred, there is an immediate shift in their dynamic and he takes on the role of a more active learner, being shown asking more questions out loud that he is seen pondering in chapter one and part of chapter two. His evolution as a learner continues in chapter three where the reader is introduced to Florence, a kid that, a lot like Ultima, doesn’t believe in the Catholic churches’ doctrine. In contrast to Antonio, he is extremely avid in his questioning of Catholic orthodoxy and of God. In the aftermath of Florence’s death, he steps into the role of teacher during the conversation he has with his father in the final chapter. In loss, Antonio,