Bless Me, Ultima: The Cultural Distress Of A Young Society Essay

Bless Me, Ultima The Cultural Distress of a Young SocietyAn answer to the discussion question of whether or not there is adefined border culture would need a great number of years in field research, butwe can also observe a few of the characteristics of such border culture just bylooking at scholastic essays and books related to the topic. Within theresearch that I did, I found a number of scholars who, while defining the border,mention all the specific or special characteristics of this new emerging society,but who also very few times defined it as such. In the book that I researched,Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo A. Anaya, we find many of those characteristics.There is already much work on this piece of literature, therefore, I decided topresent my research and study in two ways. First, I will give a personal compend of the work, in which I will discuss the different topics andparallelisms that I believe are related to an emerging border culture, andsecond, I will discuss and comple te analysis made by Roberto Cantu, publishedin The Iden tification and Analysis of Chicano Literature.The novel by Rudolfo Anaya Bless Me, Ultima, was printed in June 1972,but won the first price in the game Annual Premio Quinto Sol Literary Award in1971.The main characters of the novel are Antonio, his father, mother, twosisters, three brothers, Tenorio and his three daughters, and Ultima. Theargument presents how a child, (Antonio), matures in nonpareil year, thanks to thedifferent episodes that he goes through. Antonio, a seven year old child,narrates in first person, and describes the events that changed his life fromthe moment that Ultima arrived at his house. During the beginning of the book,his thoughts and actions are ordinary of such age, but as the events take place,Antonio changes and matures incredible fast through the text. It is even hardto find where the changes in his behavior take place, due to Rudolfos unruffledliterary transitions.Carl and Paula Shirley conden se their presentation of Bless Me, Ultimaby simply mentioning the story line of the bookShe (Ultima) is present from the boys earliest experiences growingup, family conflict, school, religion, evil and death... Much mature inthis novel, beauty, magic, New Mexico landscape, legends... (Shirley andShirley, 105).All of th... ...London Duke University Press.Creel, J. (1986). The People Next Door, an Interpretative History of Mexico andMexicans. New York John Day.Diaz-Guerrero, R. (1991). Understanding Mexicans and Americans. New YorkPlenum Press.Di-Bella, J. (1989). Literatura de la Frontera. California Binational Press.Frost, E. (1972). Las Categorias de la Cultura Mexicana. Mexico UniversidadNacional Autonoma de Mexico.Herrera-Sobek, M. (1992). Toward a promised land La frontera as amyth and reality in ballad and song. Aztlan 21 no 1-2227-62 92 96Jimenez, F. (1979). The Identification and Analysis of Chicano Literature.New York bilingual Press.Miller, T. (1981). On the Border. New Y ork Harper & Row, Publishers.Salado Alvarez, V. (1968). De como escapo Mexico de ser Yankee. MexicoEditorial Jus.Saldivar, R. (1990). Chicano Narrative. Wisconsin The University ofWisconsin Press.Shirley C. & Shirley P. (1988). Understanding Chicano Literature. ColumbiaUniversity of South Carolina Press.Universidad Autonoma de Baja California. (1983). Estudios Fronterizos.Revista del Instituto de investigaciones sociales. Mexicali UniversidadAutonoma de Baja California.