Tony’s Maturation, “bless Me, Ultima”

Jose F. Perea

ENGL-1302-W07

M. Vasquez

April 26, 2018

Tony’s Maturation, “Bless me, Ultima”

The book “Bless Me Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya has been a contradicted book. Some people love the literature of the book and others think is inappropriate and it should be ban from schools. Those who think the book should be censor did not see the positive actions the book uses to help a young kid follow his faith and believes. Bless Me Ultima should not be censor, first because talks about how a kid can collect so much knowledge from events a child not normally sees. The book illustrates how Tony’s mind start to open to another level of knowledge, when he goes through all different kind of events a child of his age shouldn’t presence, but it help him to understand the bad things happening with humanity. All the knowledge Tony collected from those experiences could not be learn if they censor the book. Bless Me, Ultima, can help the way of thinking for students who have not gone out to the real world.

Witnessing someone’s death is not easy to handle for a seven year old child. If I had to see someone being murder at that age, I would be in shock for the rest of my life. This kind of situation for a kid can cause premature loss of innocence in a good and in a bad way, but for Tony the almost seven year old and one of the protagonist from the book “Bless Me Ultima”, was something that could change the way he thinks about certain people. When Antonio presence Lupito’s death, like he describe it in the book,” Many shots found their mark. I saw Lupito lifted off his feet and hurled backward by the bullets”, (Anaya, 1972, p. 22). When Tony saw how they shot Lupito without shaking hands he realize how evil people can be with someone else. The event that Antonio witness, was one of the causes that made him think differently from a kid of his age. At early age Antonio starts to lose his innocence and starts thinking like and adult. He starts to question his beliefs asking why god would let someone do that. Tony gathers experience from that situation, which helps him understand not to judge a book by its cover, meaning not to trust no one. Lupito’s death was one of many situations Antonio had to face through the story.  Kids at the age of Antonio should be playing with their toys or with friends “hide and seek” or “touch”, but life is not the same for everyone. People who want to censor this novel think that no child should lose his innocence like Antonio did in the story and that is why they don’t like the book, but what they do not see and appreciate is how the author uses all those tragically events to show how a kid loses his innocence to start thinking like an adult and become mature.