Analysis of Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Última

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on January 29, 2026

Second recipient of the Quinto Sol Prize in 1971, this novel opened a new era for Chicano letters. Quinto Sol Publications established an annual prize for Chicano writers to promote their works in mainstream literature and, a year after Tomás Rivera’s Y No Se Lo Tragó La Tierra/And the Earth Did Not Part (1971) was awarded the prize, Anaya’s Bless Me, Última was acclaimed best novel. Heart of Aztlán and Tortuga complete Anaya’s trilogy on growing up Chicano in New Mexico during a time of political and social changes after World War II.

Antonio Márez y Luna, the protagonist of the novel, experiences the arrival of Última, a curandera (healer), to his house as the opening of a period of changes and new possibilities in his life. He, as an adolescent, has to fulfill new responsibilities and make decisions that affect his future life as an adult. His mother expects that he will become a man of learning, maybe a priest, while his father, for whom Antonio is his last hope, dreams of going west, to California, to improve his life as a road builder. León, Eugene, and Andrew (Antonio’s brothers) have already abandoned the family home, enlisting to fight in the war first, then moving to other major cities in New Mexico, such as Santa Fe or Vegas when the war ends. Trapped between his parents’ desires and hopes, Antonio finds in Última the wisdom and balance to guide him through this troubling time in life and the curandera responds to this trust by teaching him about nature and its power. Together they perform cures and confront evil, which appears even in ghostly and threatening forms.

Respected and feared at the same time, Última’s power is acknowledged by all the villagers and, although her goodness might be questioned, her wisdom is never doubted. Her name describes her situation as the last representative of her kind: a powerful woman capable of dominating nature, using its magic to cure. The magic of nature can also bring destruction for those who defy the goodness of the curandera, like the Trementina sisters. As a symbol of that special relationship she has with nature, an owl accompanies her and protects her from attacks. She tells Antonio that it has been given to her by a wise man and it is her spirit. At the end of the novel, the owl dies at the hands of Tenorio (embodiment of evil in the novel), who shoots him in revenge for the death of his daughters, the Trementina sisters. On the death of her spirit, Última’s life escapes her body and she dies peacefully, blessing Antonio and leaving the scent of her presence around: “I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Always have the strength to live. Love life and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle and the owls sing in the hills, I shall be with you” (247).

Besides Última’s instruction, Antonio receives classes in English at school and this language overtakes Spanish outside the household. The code-switching condition (the combination of two languages to form a new and different linguistic code) that Chicanos experience also plays a relevant role in Anaya’s novel through Antonio’s education. He envisions his own future as a man of letters when he learns to read and write; in fact, he has several premonitory dreams about his destiny during his learning process. The reader already knows the adult Antonio from his position as narrator of the story, and so the novel, apart from falling in the genre of the autobiography, can be considered a Künstlerroman, or novel about the formative process of an artist.

Religion represents a conflicted point in Antonio’s educative process. On the one hand, Antonio feels the mercy and forgiveness of the Virgin of Guadalupe to whom his mother says the rosary and prays for the safe return of her sons; he even dreams of Última’s spirit (her owl) lifting up Our Lady to heaven. On the other hand, he has a different view of the Christian God who allows evil and injustice in the world, especially the deaths of Lupito and Narciso, which he has witnessed in his short life. Thus, after a long period of preparation to take his first communion, he expects to find clarity upon receiving the holy host. However, a feeling of frustration invades him when he realizes that no mystery of the Catholic faith will be revealed for him with the sacrament.

A true epiphany, nevertheless, takes place when his friend Cico tells him the story of the golden carp and Antonio discovers its beauty in the river. The impact of the vision makes the eyes of his understanding open wide and he realizes that what he previously had conceived as opposite realities have now become complementary parts of the same truth. For the first time, he knows that he does not have to decide between being a Márez or a Luna, between Spanish or English, good or evil, life or death, but that he has to combine and accept both sides of each pair because they are indivisible and come along together like the two sides of the same coin.

Prophecies have been fulfilled in the figure of Antonio, a writer and a recipient of Última’s teachings: her knowledge has been transmitted widely in this novel.

SOURCES
Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Última. Berkeley, Calif.: Quinto Sol Publications, 1972.
Augenbraum, Harold, and Margarite Fernández Olmos. U.S. Latino Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Maciel, David R., Isidro D. Ortiz, and Maria Herrera-Sobeck, eds. Chicano Renaissance: Contemporary Cultural Trends. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000.
Novoa, Bruce. Retrospace: Collected Essays on Chicano Literature. Houston, Tex.: Arte Público Press, 1990.