Bless Me, Ultima is filled with Antonio's dreams. In these sequences a lot of the boy's fears and perceptions about religion and his family are vividly portrayed. These dream sequences are imaginative and beautifully written. They add a great deal to the novel. They allow the reader of Bless Me, Ultima inside the mind of this little boy, we can now see what he is dealing with. However, in order to do this, the reader must have an understanding of what the dreams mean. I will try to analyze Antonio's dreams.
Antonio's dreams allow us to see that this young boy has great power. His understanding of his life and his family is outstanding. This is clearly exhibited in the first sequence of the novel where the events of Antonio's own birth are recalled. Antonio's mind soars to the past. There is a struggle between his mother's side of the family and his father's. They both have different plans for the young baby, and they both have different rituals that follow the birth. A fight erupts between the two sides, and it is only though the peace making efforts of Ultima that the fight is resolved. This is the first time we have seen Ultima in action. It is clear that she is a ruling force, she is the ultimate judge for all these people. Her power is feared and unknown yet it is also accepted and respected. Antonio's mother even calls her "Grande", meaning grand, and powerful one. Antonio has seen all of the power of Ultima in his dream, and he now awaits the arrival of this mighty woman.
Antonio's second dream is also very important. Antonio is dreaming of his three brothers. They are all describing different parts of their father's dream and hope to travel and build. It is clear that Antonio's brothers share the Marez blood with their father, but in his dream they tell Antonio that he is a Luna (his mother's side of the family). The brothers then become frightened when they hear the cry of the river. They claim it is the evil witch llorona or the soul of Lupito calling to them so they flee, but Antonio shouts after them saying it is just the soul of the river. His brothers then call to him for his help, so Antonio asks the presence of the river to grant his brothers their wish to leave and build their castle on the hill. At the end of the dream Antonio's mother cries as she realizes that with each turning of the moon her son, her Antonio is growing older. Antonio has already seen the future with this dream. While at this point in the novel his brothers have not even returned home from the war he knows that they will leave again once they get home. He has also seen that there is power in the river, and while most people would consider it a threatening force and power, Antonio already understands its helpful power. He already feels his connection to a power other than the religion that he currently practices.
At the very beginning of chapter nine Antonio has another important dream about his brothers. In this dream they beckon him to enter Rosie's, the local brothel. Antonio pleads with his brothers not to enter this evil place. They tell him that he too will enter one day, that he too is a Marez man, that all men must be fulfilled by a woman. Only his brother Andrew says he will not enter until Antonio has lost his innocence. Then Antonio claims he will never lose his innocence. His mother and the priest tell him you are only innocent when you do not know, innocence is lost with the arrival of understanding. Ultima then appears and tells Antonio to look to the land of his birth. This dream is a precursor to the effect Rosie's, the brothel, will have later in the story, but perhaps even more importantly is the reference to 'innocence'. This subject may be the key issue of this novel. Antonio has seen three murders by the end of the story, and it is questionable whether this young boy is as innocent as his age suggests. Does youth necessarily mean innocence? According to the way the priest and Antonio's mother describe it Antonio is not an innocent boy.
The next important dream passage is on page 112 (see illustration). I feel that this is the best sequence in the novel. It creates a beautiful picture in our minds which serves as a metaphor for Antonio's world. It is the divided world of his mother and father, and Catholicism and the religion of the Golden Carp. The water is divided between the raging sea of the Golden Carp and Antonio's father, and the cool, calm waters of his mother and the church. These two sides converge and a huge storm is about to descend when Ultima calls "cease!". Ultima explains that the sea could not survive without the replenishing waters of the moon, and that the oceans are drawn into the sky to become the waters of the moon. It is a circle, and in truth the waters are one. Antonio now understands that he can see the cycle of life, that everything is bound together. He is now able to look at everything as one entity, rather than in separate parts.
The dream Antonio has on page 165 reveals his curiosity about whether religion is hypocritical, and if he will be punished for thinking this. It begins when Antonio asks God's forgiveness for his brother's sins. God says he would never offer forgiveness for someone who has "sinned with the whores". Antonio then asks for the forgiveness of Narciso. Now the virgin Mary descends from the sky and says she will only forgive Narciso if Tenorio is forgiven as well. "You cannot! I persisted in my delirium, you must punish Tenorio for killing Narciso!" resists Antonio. Now God becomes infuriated saying that the virgin must forgive all, just as he must strike down with vengeance upon those who deserve it. There is to be no crossing of the roles. God claims that Antonio is selfish in his whims. Now there is chaos on the land as the people wish to drink the blood on the land, because it is supposed to cure all sins. The people long to drink the blood of Ultima. Antonio's brothers call to him to forgive them, for they have sinned in all ways. He tells them he is not a priest, there is nothing he can do when he too has sinned. When Antonio reaches out to them he is surrounded by the evil Trementina sisters. The sisters curse Antonio and he begins to die. Antonio dies in his dream. Led by the Trementina sisters, an angry crowd burns down their house killing his mother, his father, and sisters. All the small children are chained up and grow old very quickly. They then render Ultima powerless and then kill her and drink her blood. At last there is nothing left but the ashes of the dead. Upon seeing this the Golden Carp decides that everything should live again, just in a new form. He swallows everything, including good and evil, and rises up the heavens where he becomes "A new sun to shine its good light upon a new earth." This dream seems to represent Antonio's fear of rejecting God and the Virgin. He feels even to question their power would cause horrible consequences. The people, led by the forces of evil would then destroy him, his family, the children, and Ultima, everything he holds dear in his life. When all the bloodshed and destruction is over, the Golden Carp will come out and give a new birth to everything that has been destroyed. Just as all the sinners in earlier times were changed into fish by the kind god, he is now promising new life to all the recent sin on earth. This dream leaves one with a discomfort about God but a security coming from the golden carp. It seems that the golden carp cares for life and hates to see it destroyed, while God will destroy if offended.
The last dream sequence in the novel is about the three deaths that Antonio has witnessed. At first he thinks the three figures are his brothers but then discovers they are Narciso, Lupito, and Florence. Now his friends start fighting and Antonio wonders how many more will die. When he sees the priest pour pigeons blood on the holy alter he is witnessing the death of God. Then Cico strikes down the golden carp and its blood runs into the water. Antonio does not know what is left and cries "the magic of Ultima! ". But now Florence points to where Tenorio has murdered Ultima's owl and Ultima has died in pain. The three figures tell Antonio that they live only in his dreams. Again Antonio has seen the future, he has seen Ultima's death. He has witnessed the death of two religions and he is left only with three ghosts who appear in his dreams.
This is an eerie end to the sequence of Antonio's dreams. He is left still afraid of religion. It is earlier, in the real world that Antonio discovers for himself what he believes. And it is just as Ultima told him in his dream, it is a combination of his mother's beliefs and his father's. It is a combination of the preservation of the church and the nature of the llano which is "free, immortal, limitless." It is towards the end of this novel that Antonio's dreams no longer rule him, as is evidenced in the last sequence. While he still has doubts, he has determined where his heart lies, he has come to a greater understanding of his place in his family. The images that haunt his dreams are no longer in control of Antonio, Antonio is in control of himself.