Literature Analysis Q & A's 1-4
 Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya

1- The story is about a little boy named Antonio Marez. The setting is Guadalupe, New Mexico around the 1940's. During WWII. Antonio is the third child following his two older brothers who are away at war. The towns curandera, Ultima, moves in with the family with the mothers beliefs that Antonio will value the ideas of  her ways and the Catholic ways. Antonio falls in love with the type of person Ultima is and how she helps heals people from evil or any illnesses. He enjoys all the time he can spend with her. Antonio's parents are pressuring him to follow either in his fathers footsteps, to become a vaquero, or a priest which is what his mother wants him to be. There is some evil that is going through the town because the town drunk is a crazy and his three daughters are believed to associate themselves with witchcraft, so they have brought evil upon they're family. It is believed that the sisters have placed a cursed on Antonio's uncle and it is up to Ultima and Antonio to help replenish him from the curse. Antonio is offered plenty of information and different belief paths of life. He feels pressured whether to follow His mothers or his fathers, friends, and he basically is just finding himself and what he wants to personally believe in. He is molding his life and his beliefs, does not want to follow or feed off the beliefs of others. In the end Antonio is left with so much knowledge to continue the ways of a curandero and he can be there for the people just like Ultima was there for everyone who asked for her help.

2. One important theme throughout this novel is the importance of your identity. Antonio is trying to discover who he really is. But he is influenced by so much, through language barriers, vaqueros vs. priest, and his culture. He is so determined to find one solid answer to the questions he has, about who is, what his purpose in the future is. But what Ultima tries to advice him with is that whether he has so many influences around him, that he should take advantage of it all and just let it all teach him to be a better person. He doesn't need a title but he should just be the better person in cases when he is needed and just in general.

3.-The author held a very mysterious feel to the story. Was a bit eerie and left the reader in suspense.

   "The orange of the golden carp appeared at the end of the pond... Out of the corner 

of my eyes I saw Cico hold his hand over his breast as the golden carp glided by.

Then with a switch of his powerful tail the golden carp disappeared in the 

shadowy water under the thicket."

 -  He also claims how the characters need to be mindful about things that are going on. The authors tone is very humble. Especially when he explains Ultima and her ways of doing things. She is a very patient and humble lady who is very wise about life.

" The tragic consequences of life can be overcome by the magical strength

that resides in the human heart."

- There is the tone of honoring the wise. Feeling proud and thankful for what good they have done. Honoring the dead and appreciating them.

"In two days we would celebrate the mass of the dead, and after mass we would 

take her body to the cemetery of Las Pasturas, for burial."

4.- Throughout the novel the author used personification to help convey what his meaning behind the story was. And to help the reader have a better understanding of things. 

"The sun was good. The men of the llano were men of the sun. The men of the farms along the rivers

were men of the moon. But we were all children of the white sun."

"There are so many dreams to be fulfilled, but Ultima says a man's destiny must unfold itself like a flower, with only the sun and the earth and water making it blossom, and no one else meddling in it."

- Anaya uses a lot of imagery. With this element he is able to help paint a picture in the readers mind.

"Around me the moonlight glittered on the pebbles of the llano, and in the night sky a million stars sparkled. Across the river I could see the twinkling lights of the town.

"They will burn sulfur instead of holy incense. They will sing and dance around her coffin, pulling at their hair and flesh. They will slay a rooster and spread his blood on their dead sister."

- Metaphors were used through out the writing to help compare and explain in detail a picture to the readers mind. Antonio is explaining what amazing things Ultima has done for him and how much she has opened his eyes too.

"Ultima came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes, and the gurgling waters of the river sang to the hum of the turning earth. The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mystery into my living blood."

Question # 1


(1987 AP Essay)






With every new generation comes new customs, traditions, ways of living, fashion, and more enhanced tools that we use in our daily life. George Eliot claims about how "old Leisure" was a very different life style growing up too compared the new Leisure. Eliot uses personification and imagery has her stylistic devices to support her view.


Eliot uses the element of personification describing the "old" and the "new" style of leisure. An example, of the "old" is, "He was contemplative, rather stout gentlemen, of excellent digestion-of quiet perceptions,

undiseased by hypothesis: happy is his inability to know to causes of things, preferring themselves." With this she is claiming how back then in the "olden days" the people were much more less worry free about their day. "Happy is his inability to know to causes of things," is contradicting the idea of how the "old" days were. It is expressing that the people were happier even though they might have been the cause of something bad that had happened to themselves. As in the "new" or "modern" generation people are more laid back abut life and just let technology run things for them.


Imagery was a literary element that stood out a lot. Eliot expressed several examples in her writing. For instance in describing the "old" leisure she claimed,"He lives chiefly in the country: among pleasant seats and homesteads, ad was fond of sauntering be the fruit-tree wall, and scenting the apricots when they warmed by the morning sunshine of sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling." We are given painted picture of where he is living and the surroundings. The old was characterized with the beauty of nature, the calm living life style. As for the "new" more fast pace going life style; Eliot shows us how the "modern" life style is. "a vacuum for eager for amusement: prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels, prone even to scientific theorising, and cursory peeps through microscopes.” Through technology we the people are learning new life styles to live by. We have been given the opportunity to enhance our lives with the power of technology to make things easier for us. This is was differentiates us from the two, "old" and "new" styles of leisure.


With this said, Eliot is proving that both generations have varied the life styles of living. Each generation that comes there will be new habits of ways of living life. "Old" leisure was described to be more connected with nature and the beauty of working hard. "New" leisure there is life of using technology to enhance our styles of living. To be able to simple things down for us. And Eliot expressed these both sides very well.

Question # 2

(1987 AP Essay)

The Crucible by Arthur Miller exemplifies social attitudes and political views that go on during the Salem trials. The social status that goes on in town are based off very religious views. The town is following the ideas of Puritans. During the Salem witch trials the towns people expressed a high factor of intolerance. This shows how the town follows the moral laws of conforming into the true religion and follow God with out sin.

The town is a very religion based, giving off the impression that they only live to follow God and must live without sin. Miller gives wonderful examples of how the town reacts too the word that "witch craft" is going on throughout the town. The social attitude about when the word has been spread, the town reacts hysterically about the sinning that is going on. Miller expresses how society is so captured through religion and how society has no real privacy. The social attitudes being expressed in this play are how the towns folks live with no privacy, follow the word of God, and they are so terrified having the thought that someone upon them has sinned. Constructing your life to follow God and have no private life is the society that have formed to become. Living with practically one eye open because the town is paranoid that witch craft is going on, is not the life style to live by.

The towns political views are expressed how they follow Gods word and believe if a person has sinned then the person should go to court and be humiliated in front of the town. The town "resolves" their problems through court and hold trials to see what the conclusion of their issue is. All the people focus how everyone is sinning by lying and should be hung for their actions. Rather then trying to forgive a person, they believe in getting rid of the "problem". 

In conclusion, The Crucible holds examples of it's social attitudes that the town holds. And it's political views of solving situations that go through out the town. Their social attitudes results in paranoia and believing that the whole town is bewitched. And their style of "resolving" issues is by just getting rid of the problem.