Bless Me, Ultima

Bless Me, Ultima, is a coming of age story focusing on the life of 7-year-old, Antonio Marez. In the beginning, Antonio, like any other kid was blinded to the cruel real world. His mother shielded him from everything in hope to keep her last son pure and innocent. She raised him to be religious and someday hopefully become a priest. However, throughout the novel, Ultima guides him to moral independence. Antonio becomes exposed to multiple life-changing events which furthermore cause him to lose his innocence, experiencing deaths of close people, witnessing Ultima’s cure, and realizing that even the people he trusted the most, make mistakes.
Throughout the novel, Antonio experiences many deaths of all types of people, some he knew closely, and some who were distant. However, the major ones were the deaths of Lupito, Narcisco, Florence, and Ultima, all in which were very traumatizing. These deaths started to open Antonios eyes to the reality of the life. Yet, out of all the deaths, I believe that the death of Ultima was the most life-changing for Antoino. To persevere and keep hope through the death of someone who had such a great impact on his life takes a lot of maturity. The separation of Ultima and Antonio really shows how what an impact and she had on him. Now on his own, Antonio creates harmony between his two families by experiencing and embracing both sides. From Ultimas death, Antonio really grew as a person and being able to make his own decisions without any others influencing it.
In the novel Antonio finds moral independence, from experiences that made him question his Catholic faith. In the novel, Lucas, Maria’s youngest brother becomes severely sick after witnessing the Trementina sisters performing “Black magic”. Ultima cures Lucas using a unique process in which Lucas was cured once he coughed up a huge ball of hair. By witnessing Ultima’s cure and how she was able to cure him when all else failed, Antonio started to question his faith. “The