'Gender Roles in Bless Me, Ultima\r'

'In Bless Me, Ultima Antonio understands sex as a very black and white issue. Just as he disputes with the ideas of religion, good and evil, death, and nature. Antonio struggles with how g wind uper affects his life, and how he lastly must(prenominal) perform a man. The most open example of Antonio’s perspective on gender roles comes with his view of the consummate(a) and God. â€Å"God was not evermore forgiving. He made laws to follow and if you broke them you were punished. The consummate(a) always forgave…The Virgin was full of a quiet, peaceful love…she was a woman…Her voice was pleasantness and gentle…” (44).\r\nAntonio believes firmly that The Virgin is the most sodding(a) form of woman. He prays at her feet every shadow in his living room. At one point, he notices that the paint on the statue is chipping, revealing a form of white underneath. He uses this to indicate that she is consummate(a) in every form. Whenever Antonio thinks about religion, he thinks about the Virgin, and how forgiving she is, and how kind she is. Later on in the book, as he is considering if there can be different types of Gods, Antonia wonders if The Virgin is her own kind of God, and that is better because she is a woman and testament understand more easily.\r\nAntonio is unceasingly reminded of the fact that he must become a man. His puzzle is worried, and his father is counting down the days. save no one seems to be giving him untold of a choice. He provide be educated, he will be a priest, he will be a farmer, he will be a Luna, he will be a Margonz… â€Å"My man of learning!… My baby will be gone today,” she sobbed. â€Å"He will be all(a) right,” Ultima said. â€Å"The sons must leave the sides of their mothers,” she said almost badly and pulled my mother gently. ” (53). Antonio is never allowed to be anything but a man of learning.\r\nEven in his times of struggle with the issue of becoming a man, Ultima is there to aid him. She has no doubt that he will become a good man in time. At one point in the book, Antonio’s mother tells him it is a sin that he become a man, and yet she is also telling him that he must become a man. Her contradicting statements do not helper Antonio with this struggle at all. His older brothers are also a bad influence. All they value is booze, money, and women, and they ask to go wander through foreign cities. Antonio sees the offspring this has on everyone, and decides early on that he won’t be like them.\r\nThe most grave woman in Antonio’s life is Ultima. He holds her to the same standard as he does the Virgin; that she is forgiving, wise and full of love. â€Å"Ultima has sympathy for people, and it is so shade that with is she can touch their souls and cure them. ” (248). To Antonio, Ultima’s pure form of sympathy is equivalent to the pure benignity of The Virgin. â€Å"There i sn’t a family she did not help,” she continued, â€Å"no road was too long for her to walk to its end to snatch somebody from the jaws of death, and not even the blizzards of the llano could progress her from the appointed place where a baby was to be delivered…” (3).\r\nThis is the first time Antonio hears of Ultima, so when he meets her, he is already full of expectations. He is expecting a miracle worker, and he gets one. Antonio learns that his other struggles; religion, life, and death are not so simple. They are more than just black and white. However, he never seems to move beyond the idea of gender role strictness. Women are soft and forgiving, and men are strong. But maybe in his future, he will lean that the roles of men and women are not as black and white as they seem.\r\n'