Bless Me, Ultima is a splendidly written novel that is at once tragic, pastoral, and apocalyptic. The novel begins with Ultima's violation of the maxim not to interfere with the destiny of any person. Her death at the end of the novel can be seen as a nemesis, or punishment. These events occur in the context of a rural people whose cultural relationship to nature is being greatly impacted by Western development. The folk response to massive social change is apocalyptic in terms of perception, and the novel is apocalyptic in that it promotes biculturalism as a synthesis of the conflict between cultures. The novel has excellent symmetry, good pace and action, and can be seen as a Chicano bildungsroman.
Bless Me, Ultima is not only regarded as a major contribution to the growing body of Chicano/a literature that emerged during the Chicano/a Movement (1965-75), but also is held as one of the works that set the canon for Chicano/a literature. Today, the novel is regarded as part of the emerging genre of cultural novels that explore the development of self and ethnic identity in a world of racism and antagonistic ethnic relations. The writings of Anaya, especially Bless Me, Ultima, have generated the largest response of interpretation and criticism of any work by Chicano/a authors.
Bless Me, Ultima can be analyzed at many levels from many angles. It is a rich novel that weaves social change, religion, psychological and cognitive maturation, cultural conflict, ethnic identity formation, and many other themes together into a coherent and believable story about a young boy. At one level, Bless Me, Ultima can be read as a romance novel that laments the passing of a societal period that is seen in the present through myth. It can also be read at the cultural nationalist level as resolving the historical conflict between the villages and providing a counter-position to the racist ideology of the United States. Finally, it can be seen as a fragment of an expressive Chicano/Mexicano culture that promotes storytelling and uses apocalypse as an ideological construct. Literary critics have found Bless Me, Ultima a fertile text for analysis. The names, figures, and objects of Antonio's world have yielded rich analyses of their symbolisms. In sum, the novel is a richly textured narrative that weaves many themes and sub-themes and allows for different interpretations.
