Gender Roles in Bless Me, Ultima

In Bless Me, Ultima Antonio understands gender as a very barren and white issue. just now as he struggles with the ideas of religion, good and evil, death, and nature. Antonio struggles with how gender affects his biography, and how he eventually must suffer a man. The nigh obvious example of Antonios perspective on gender roles comes with his view of the Virgin and God. God was non always for fine-looking. He made laws to follow and if you broke them you were punished. The Virgin always forgaveThe Virgin was full of a quiet, peaceful loveshe was a womanHer voice was sweet and gentle (44).Antonio believes firmly that The Virgin is the or so sharp form of woman. He prays at her feet every night in his living room. At wizard point, he nonices that the paint on the statue is chipping, revealing a layer of white underneath. He uses this to indicate that she is axenic in every form. Whenever Antonio thinks about religion, he thinks about the Virgin, and how forgiving she is, an d how kind she is. Later on in the book, as he is considering if at that place can be other types of Gods, Antonia wonders if The Virgin is her own kind of God, and that is come apart because she is a woman and will understand more easily.Antonio is constantly reminded of the fact that he must mother a man. His mother is worried, and his father is counting down the days. But no one seems to be giving him much of a choice. He will be educated, he will be a priest, he will be a farmer, he will be a Luna, he will be a Marez My man of learning My coddle will be gone today, she sobbed. He will be all right, Ultima said. The sons must leave the sides of their mothers, she said almost sternly and pulled my mother gently. (53). Antonio is never allowed to be anything scarcely a man of learning.Even in his times of struggle with the issue of becoming a man, Ultima is there to help him. She has no doubt that he will become a good man in time. At one point in the book, Antonios mother te lls 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 statework forcets do not help Antonio with this struggle at all. His older brothers are also a bad influence. All they measure out is booze, money, and women, and they choose to go wander through foreign cities. Antonio sees the effect this has on everyone, and decides early on that he wont be like them.The most important woman in Antonios life is Ultima. He holds her to the same standard as he does the Virgin that she is forgiving, wise and full of love. Ultima has sympathy for people, and it is so complete that with is she can touch their souls and cure them. (248). To Antonio, Ultimas pure form of sympathy is equivalent to the pure forgiveness of The Virgin. There isnt a family she did not help, she continued, no road was too long for her to passport to its end to snatch somebody from the jaws of death, and not even the blizzards of the llano could keep her fr om the appointed place where a baby was to be delivered (3).This 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.