Just to finish with our literary or biographical background of Rudolfo Anaya, It is important to remark the fact that this novel was published at an important time in Latino history in the United States. A powerful movement was happening in political, economic and cultural circles which affirmed the value of Latino experience and protested about the discrimination that Mexican Americans were suffering within the United States. Anaya himself was part of this movement called Aztlan. This was the name of a mythical Aztec place. Chicano writers and artists wanted to find a place of origin for their heritage, and the mythical place of Aztlan was an useful way for writers to think back to the past that was before or alongside European American History.
Bless Me, Ultima was in this sense the first Chicano novel to celebrate this movement. It affirms the varied parts of the heritage of Mexican Americans in New Mexico: The Spanish Conquistadores, The Aztecs (The Indians of Mexico) and the Comanche (The Indians who inhabited the land that is now New Mexico). It is set in the schools where the main character, Antonio, undergoes the process of assimilation that always begins by taking the ethnic name and turning it into an English name (Antonio became Anthony). It is set in the Llano, rich in history of the vaqueros (like the Márez, Antonio’s father’s family). But it also takes some elements of the farming culture, which derived from the former Aztecs and other earth-based religious systems (represented in the novel by the Lunas, Antonio’s mother’s family. The novel also describes the life of a Roman Catholic, but of a special sort. One who must learn how to reconcile the doctrines of Catholicism with the religion of those who inhabited the land before Christians came. In covering all the diversity of the heritage of Antonio, Anaya gave voice to the diversity and richness of this ethnic group heritage in this country.
Once we have introduced the aim of our essay, we have provided it with an interconnected background information about Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima and the Chicano ethnic group and racial movement, now we are going to come back to what is the backbone of our work, the theme of the dreams. As we know the novel is filled with Antonio’s dreams. In these dream sequences much of the boy’s fears and perceptions about religion and his family are vividly portrayed. They are imaginative and beautifully written. They add a great deal to the novel, allowing the reader of Bless Me, Ultima to enter inside the mind of this boy, across them we can now see what he is dealing with. However in order to do this, we must have an understanding of what the dreams mean. I will try to analyze Antonio’s most important dreams now, and when this has been finished I will try also to arrive to some conclusions about this topic, explain Anaya’s aims and psychological influences, etc.
Antonio’s dreams show us how this young boy has great power. His understanding of his life and his family is outstanding just from the beginning of the book. This is clear in his first dream in chapter one of the novel where he is even able to recall the events of his own birth. His comes back into the past, and he even recognizes members of his family who are there (“I recognized my mother’s brothers (…) these were the people of my father…). There is a struggle between his mother’s side of the family and his father’s. They both have different plans toward what is going to be in the future the young child, they even receive the birth with which could be called different rituals. At the end a sort of struggle arises between the two sides of Antonio’s family. Till finally Ultima stops it. This is the first time that we see Ultima in action, but it is clear that she represents a leading force, her power is accepted and respected by this people. María Luna (Antonio’s mother) even calls her “Grande”. In this first dream, apart from soaring the past, Antonio has foreshadow all the power of Ultima, and he now in the real life awaits the arrival of this friendly and powerful woman. At the end of this chapter, a new reference to another dream he has had appears, in this case is not the dream in italics, only a summary. But it is also important because it could be a case of religious syncretism: he dreams with Ultima’s Owl which is lifting La Virgen de Guadalupe and flying her to heaven, them the Owl “gathered up all the babes of Limbo”, and the prove to support the syncretism is that the Virgin “smiled at the goodness of the Owl”. So here two symbols of two different religions seem to co-occur in Antonio’s mind, without struggle within their “relation”. I think this is very important, and might be representative of the two sides in conflict within Antonio’s life.
Antonio’s second dream is also very important. He is dreaming of his three brothers. They are all describing different parts of his father’s dream or hope to travel and build. It is clear that his brothers share the same Márez blood with their father, but in his dream they tell Antonio that he is a Luna like his mother. The brothers then become frightened when they hear the cry of the river. They claim it is the evil witch Llorona or the soul of Lupito calling to them so they flee, but Antonio -being the youngest- shouts after them saying it is just the soul of the river. Then his brother call to him for his help, so Antonio asks the presence of the river to grant his brothers their wish to leave and build their castle on the hill. At the end of the dreams Antonio’s mother cries as she realizes that with each turning of the moon her son, Antonio is growing older. The importance of this dream is to some extend that Antonio is again able so see the future. While at this point in the novel his brothers have not even returned home from the war, he knows that they will leave again once they get home. He has also seen that there is power in the river, and while most people would consider it a threatening force and power, Antonio (despite of his age) already understand its helpful power. He is already conscious of his connection to a power other than the religion that he currently practices.
There is another moment in the book, at the beginning of chapter nine, where Antonio has another important dream about his brothers. In this dream they treat to persuade him to enter Rosie’s, the local brother (which is somehow associated with sin to Antonio). He pleads with his brothers not to enter this evil place. They tell him that he too will enter one or another day, that he is too a Márez man, that all men must be fulfilled by a woman. Only his brother Andrew says he will not enter until Antonio has lost his innocence. Then Antonio claims he will never lose his innocence. His mother and the priest tell him you are only innocent when you do not know, innocence is lost with the arrival of understanding. Ultima then appears and tells Antonio to look to the land of his birth.
The most important things in this dream is the meaning and the effect that Rosie’s brothel will have later in the story, with its relation with the question of sin,etc. But I think that the second more important thing to remark is the reference to “innocence”. One of the main subject of the novel, because due to the encounters that Antonio has with death, he has seen three murders by the end of the story, and we might ask whether he is as innocent as his age suggests. Why has youth necessarily mean innocence?. Because if we take into account the way innocence is described by Antonio’s mother and the priest, this little boy is not innocent at all.
I think that the most important dream, at least till now, is on chapter eleven, page 112. I consider it important because it can be seen as a metaphor for Antonio’s life. It is the division between the world that represents his mother, always connected with Catholicism and on his father’s side: the Golden Carp and the mer-woman, which are symbols of Antonio’s ties to “pagan” religion or the world of the Márez. The water is divided between the ranging sea of the Golden Carp and Antonio’s father, and the cool, calm waters of his mother and the church. These two sides converge and a huge storm is about to descend when Ultima says “Cease!.” Then he explains to Antonio that “the waters are one” because it is like a circle where the sea could not survive without the replenishing waters of the moon, and that the oceans are drawn into the sky to become the waters of the moon. With this sort of explanation he is now able to look at everything as one entity, rather that in separated parts.
The dream that Antonio has on page 165 (chapter fourteen) is more a nightmare than a dream. It marks another stage on his loss of innocence. It could be seen as a revelation of Antonio’s curiosity about the hypocritical nature of religion, and if he will be punished for thinking this. The dream begins when he discovers that his brother Andrew has also been at Rosie’s -the local brothel- .Then Antonio asks God for forgiveness to his brother’s sins. God says he would never forgive Andrew or someone who has “sinned with whores”. Then we find other phrases that God tells Antonio which might have a meaning within the novel, God says: “I hear no one who has not communed with me!” This is a clear reference to Antonio’s wrong belief that he would understands everything when he has taken communion, that would mean a solution to all his religious and moral doubts. Another affirmation done by God I have marked is “I can have no priest who has golden idols before him” It can be seen as a criticism about Antonio’s dichotomy between Christian religion and “pagan” beliefs (reference to the Golden Carp). Then Antonio continues asking for forgiveness, this time, forgiveness for Narciso. Now the Virgin Mary comes from the sky and says she will forgive all, but she only can forgive Narciso if Tenorio is forgiven as well. Antonio is unable to understand it. Now God comes very furious telling Antonio that he is very selfish in his whims, God affirms that the Virgin must forgive all, just as he (God) must strike down the vengeance upon all who deserve it. Now there is a chaos on the land as the people wish to drink the blood of the land, because it is supposed to cure all sins. The people want to drink the blood of Ultima. Then Antonio’s brothers appear asking him for forgiveness, but he says he is unable to forgive them because he also has sinned. Them whem Antonio reaches his brother he is cursed by the Trementina sisters. He dies himself in the dream, followed by his mother, his father and sisters. All are killed by an angry mob who, after it, left Ultima without power, kill her and after it they drink their blood. At the end there is nothing left but the ashes of dead. It is now when the Golden Carp begins his rule by changing all into new form and he (The Golden Carp) becomes “ a new sun to shine its good light upon a new earth”. This dream comes to Antonio after the death of Narciso. It proves that Antonio is struggling once and again with his problems to understand the contrast between religions, as he tries to understand the nature of forgiveness. It seems that the Golden Carp in the dream cares for life, while on the other hand, God has no remorse in destroying it if he feels offended. Obviously Antonio is -we can see it across this dream- shocked and troubled by the recent events he has suffered in all aspect of life, mainly by the deaths he has witnessed.
Let us analyze the last dream sequence of the novel in page 232 (last chapter). It begins with the presence of the three deaths Antonio’s has witnessed till now. Despite he firstly thinks that the three figures in his dream are his three brothers, then he discovers they are: Narciso, Lupito and Florence. Antonio askes himself why he must be a witness to such violence. He wonders how many people more will die: “Who else will my prayers accompany to the land of death?”. Again in this dream Antonio foreshadows the future: Florence, his friend, who is died, but present in this dream, points to where Tenorio has killed Ultima’s Owl and She is died in pain. The three figures tell Antonio that they live only in his dreams. But the most important think is that in this dream Antonio is leaved almost without any belief outside himself in which he can believe: He has somehow witnessed the death of two religion: That of the Christian God (When the priest pours pidgeons blood on the holy alter) and that of the “pagan” God (When Cico strikes down the Golden Carp and its blood runs into the water) And without religion he is only left with three ghosts who appear in his dreams. It could be interpreted as if he were left still afraid of religion, alone with his own experience in life (Which I think that could be represented by the presence in the dream of these three deaths he has seen and the clear vision - as a warning – of the four death he is going to witness -Ultima’s- ). And in the real world it is all just as Ultima had told him in his dreams, he has to discover for himself, little by little, all he believes. Which is a combination of both: mother’s belief and father’s. A combination of the preservation of the Catholic Church and the nature of the Llano which is “free, immortal, limiteless”. We can also perceive how it is toward the end of the novel that Antonio’s dream do not have a rule force over him anymore, as is clear in this last dream. While he still has doubts, he has determined where his heart lies, he has understand his place in his family. The images that appear in his dreams are no more in control of Antonio. He has reach the control of himself.
Now once all the most important dream sequences throughout the novel have been analyzed more or less in detail, we are going to set up some conclusions to the topic, to the reasons and influences which might have led the author to use them (dreams). In fact give an unified view of this huge theme:
Firstly, I consider useful to look for the possible influence that Anaya had to use dreams in Bless Me, Ultima. In this sense, we had said just at the beginning that, apart from English, Anaya also studied psychology. So it seems obvious that he was influenced by some psychologist, I thought it was Freud, but after some research I have discovered that it was the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, who influenced him. Something that is not rare if we take into account that Jung spent the last years of his life dealing with the interference between the mythical word and the world of dreams, and the consequences in human-beings. In order to do this, he travelled to different countries, New Mexico, among them.
Secondly and Finally, Let us conclude with the classification in which all theses dreams can be grouped, something which is going to give us a whole vision of the topic:
According to Charles Tatum, and I agree with him, “There are three kinds -of dreams-: those that deal with the lives of the Márez-Luna families; those that present a conflict in which Ultima plays a reconciliable role; and those that serves as prophesies and revelations”.
Dreams in Bless Me, Ultima also represent the process of passing from innocence to adulthood. So in this sense is another mechanism that contributes to the structure of this bildungsroman novel. From this structural perspective, they are “creations within a creation” that build up the whole novel. Coming back to a functional perspective dreams follows an evolution, like Antonio himself follows another one. They have acted as warnings, which have conditioned and guided Antonio to some extend that he sometimes would be nothing without those dreams. But, and this is the most important thing, at the end of the novel, Antonio has overcome his dreams (because he has completed his maturing process, despite he is still too young) in the sense that he is never more ruled by them. He has arrived to a situation in which, backing by his experience in life, is able to resolve all his doubts, and to choose his own place in his family and in life. Place to which he has arrived very quickly thanks to the uncommon circumstances he has had to live.
