Many children, and even adults, struggle to grasp the idea of destiny. They don’t always realize that they, not their parents, have control over their fate, as does the character Merida in the Disney movie Brave. When her mother tries to force her to marriage, as is their custom, she turns to a witch to help her alter the fate that has been decided for her. Not all children are like her though. Some do not realize that they have the ability to write their own destiny and need someone to show them that. When one does not realize that they have control over their lives and their future, they can fall prey to be manipulated by others who will mold them to fit their ideals. Without someone to help them realize that that is not how life should …show more content…
When Ultima is asked to reverse the curse of the witches, she responds: “When anybody, bruja or curandera, priest or sinner, tampers with the fate of a man that sometimes a chain of events is set into motion over which no one will have ultimate control” (Anaya 85). Basically, Ultima says that when destiny is messed with, dreadful things happen to those that mess with it. However, she does agree to help reverse the curse. In doing so, she knows the witches will be punished, as she laughs later on when she hears the howling of the coyotes. Ultimas does not leave the decision to punish the witches up to another true god, she takes control herself. In doing so, she demonstrates her own sense of justice as she does not just heal the uncle, she also transfers the curse to the other witches. While this goes against the fact that destiny is not to be messed with by a human, she is acting more like a god than a mortal in this instance. People, especially young Antonio, expect a true or ‘perfect’ god to punish the wicked and reward those that have done nothing wrong. In this instance, Ultima does both. She punishes the daughters by cursing them, and heals the uncle who had done nothing wrong but had been cursed anyways. Later on in the same chapter, Ultima confronts belligerent …show more content…
As Ultima right away is able to tell Tenorio that there will be a consequence, which she implies when she says “pity the consequence,” it shows she has weighed the options beforehand and had already decided on the correct plan of action. When people think on an ideal god, they often want someone that punishes those that do evil immediately. Humans do not like to wait years and years before vengeance is earned. While a lightning bolt from the sky seconds after a sin is committed would not be plausible, a penalty that comes after a few days or weeks is still a short period of time in the grand scheme of things. However, when it comes to themselves, many people, excluding Tenorio, want to be have an ample amount of time to ‘fix’ the situation. They often find themselves wanting second chances. While Tenorio refuses this, it is because he believes Ultima to be the true ‘witch,’ and he does not really see what his daughters have done as wrong. When one does acknowledge that they have done wrong, they want a god that gives second chances, as Ultima has done here, to escape retribution. Before Antonio leaves to go off to El Puerto for the summer to learn the
In the novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, one of the main characters, Ultima is accused many times of being a witch. Ultima is a curandera who uses herbs and medicines to cure people. She goes to live with Antonio Marez, a young boy who lives in the llano with his parents and two sisters due to the fact that she cannot live by herself and had nowhere to stay. Although many people think she is a witch, her use of herbs, medicines, and scapulars show that she is merely just a curandera. With her use of chants and having her spirit in her owl, many are led to believe that she is really a witch.
Antonio’s mother, Maria Márez, says that "growing into manhood is a sin" because she believes that the pure quality that is bestowed on to children from god is lost when a boy becomes a man. She fears that Antonio will lose his pureness, so she constantly urges him to become a priest because she believe that God is the only one to “save” him from the destructive ways of manhood.
Antonio, the young boy, wants answers to the questions that have been nagging at him since he was introduced to religious ideology. He does not understand why Ultima, a close elderly friend and a healer, can save his dying uncle from the curses of evil while the priest from El Puerto with his holy water and the power of God can not lift the curse from him. He wonders whether God really exists or if the “Cico's” story of the golden carp is true. Bless Me, Ultima, is a compelling story that deals with Antonio's family, beliefs, and dreams.
“Look! He pointed to the church where the priest desecrated the altar by pouring the blood of dead pigeons into the holy chalice…When the golden carp appeared Cico struck with his spear and the water ran blood red. What is left? I asked in horror… The magic of Ultima! I insisted. Look! He pointed to the hills where Tenorio captured the night-spirit of Ultima and murdered it, and Ultima died in agony”(244).The passage is one of Tony’s dreams, where all the things he believed in were crushed. This loss makes him feel lost, not knowing what to believe in anymore. Tony also shares his feelings with the reader through the questions he asks Florence in his
When Antonio first became homeless, an older man tried to steal one of his belongings, which was a simple hot plate. His first instinct was to attack the man and take back his property. While doing so, Antonio thought, “We have almost nothing, and this man wants to take it from us” (43). In addition, he mentions how, “It felt good to hit this man… For a moment, he felt strong and free; fury was a much better drug than self-pity.” (43). When Antonio discusses about the old man and his crimes, he may be alluding to Longoria and what he did to Antonio’s family. The man who tried to take away part of Antonio’s possessions is referring to Longoria and how he took away Antonio’s family. The act of beating the old man refers Antonio’s eventual act of revenge against Longoria and the satisfaction he experiences afterwards. Both acts demonstrate Antonio’s willingness to sacrifice and harm other in certain scenarios where it is necessary. The significant difference between Longoria and Antonio is the intention behind their actions. Longoria killed hundreds in cold blood for his own selfish desires and beliefs, while Antonio only harmed a total of two people to get revenge and to enforce justice in the only way he could. As mentioned before, Longoria’s actions are evil because he commits them for selfish reasons and without remorse. In contrast, Antonio’s actions are seen as necessary evils. A necessary evil is defined as an act of evil (as perceived by society) that is committed in a certain scenario where it follows a utilitarian approach; an approach in which the action does more good than harm. When Antonio beat up the old man, he was merely protecting his belongings and enforcing the law. More importantly, when Antonio killed Longoria, it was for his wife, his son, and the hundreds of other innocent lives that Longoria had claimed; Antonio did an act of
On two separate occasions, the magic of Ultima prevailed where God’s power failed. Once when Antonio’s Uncle Lucas was under the curse of the Trementina sisters’ and a second time when brujas from a long time ago put a curse on a bulto, a ghost, and forces it to haunt the Tellez house. This further causes Antonio to question the Christian God. “Why can’t the power of God work against the evils that beset the family of Tellez…” (226).
The witches can not be the most powerful characters in the play or the catalyst to all of Macbeth’s crimes since he has the power of his free will to decide what he does. The witches did not force him to do anything, they only influenced what he did by bringing out his “dark side” and true ambitions. “And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, show’d like a rebel’s whore: But all’s too weak: for brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—disdaining Fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smoked with bloody execution,” (Act 1 Scene 2 Lines 16-20) The Captain says that Macbeth should have been killed in battle but he was stronger than his fate is. This means that Macbeth has no one to blame but himself for his own death, actions and crimes.
He now believes in two different gods, but can’t discover which is more powerful. When a curse is casted among Tellez’s house he assumes that God could get rid of it. However, that was not the case. Anaya shows this with, “So again the power of the priest has failed, I thought. Why can’t the power of God work against evils that beset the family of Tellez” (226). When the priest is unable to cure the cure, Ultima steps in and is able to cure it. Antonio is now at the state of mind that God in not powerful and that other gods are more powerful. He is torn between both religions and finds choosing to be a hard
One of the witches, Soumosso, tries to explain to Sassouma that “life hangs by nothing but a very fine thread, but all is interwoven here below. Life has a cause, and death as well. The one comes from the other” (Sundiata 24). After convincing the witches that the boy must die, the witches come up with a plan to trap Sunidiata into harming one of them, for that is the only way he can be killed by them. Stealing from his mother’s tree, the three witches were stopped, but spared by Sundiata.
Most kids do not have to deal with the thought of what they will become until the end of high school, but for Antonio, he has been pressured to determine his fate since they day he was brought into the world. In the classic Chicano novel, Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya, young Antonio “Tony” Márez is struggling to discover his fate. Tony must decide between becoming a farmer-priest, which his mother wants, or becoming a vaquero, which his father prefers. Rudolfo Anaya believes that a person will not know their fate until they are ready for it, and that numerous things can influence a person’s fate. Anaya expresses this through series of vivid dreams that Tony experiences as he searches for answers. Anaya does this by showing how only Ultima
Learning to lead our children in an environment where they grow up every day is a better decision. One of the most difficult things for parents is to give independence to their own children because we do not understand their need for that. In contrast, teenagers have to lean their hand that overprotection is one dad decision for example puttie caballero, even though knight’s twin daughter, symphony and kymberlee age 19 and attending college, knight remain deeply involved in their day to day lives. She goes shopping with them. She gives them advice about their relationships.”
The audience is left in no doubt about Lady Macbeth’s determination when she asks the spirits to make her masculine ‘unsex me here’ and make her completely evil:
...ause of their own free will. The theme of love is widely portrayed in the world. Love matters because it is what ties two people together through commitment and pain. However, there are those who pervert the idea of love and treat it as if it is filled with lust and pleasure-seeking opportunities. In society, young and reckless people “go out” with each other because they are desperate for excitement in their lives. Those who “go out” fail to realize that they shouldn’t be so committed to one another. Therefore, it is a waste of time at such a young age. Those who do should be paying attention to reality instead of their own fantasy. If adolescent people have love, it is only a hindrance from being who they want to be. In conclusion, love influences people to behave irrationally and to take chances that would otherwise seem irresponsible in the eyes of the mature.
The witches have a strong effect on Macbeth's character; they highly influence him in his accomplishments and awake his ambitions. They give Macbeth a false sense of security with their apparitions of truths. Instead they prove to be harmful for Macbeth who takes too much comfort and confidence in his interpretation of the truths. They are the ones who plant the actual idea of killing Duncan into Macbeth's mind. But if it were only the witches prophecies, then Macbeth surely would not have murdered the king. 'When you durst to do it, then you were a man,' (Macbeth, Shakespeare Act 1 Scene 7) Lady Macbeth's constant harassment pushed Macbeth and made him commit all this evil. When you reason things out by yourself you tend to now what is right and what is wrong, a conscience. But with the outside influence from the witches he thinks that that is his destiny and he must do everything to fulfill it. One can wonder if Macbeth ever had a chance of doing what was right after he met with the witches. He is overthrown and killed. Through his own ambitions, the ambition of his wife and the witches' prophesies, Macbeth has caused his own destruction and downfall. We can now clearly see that ambition not achieved through our own ability leads to destruction. 'Hail Thane of Glamis and of Cawdor and shalt be King hereafter'. (Act 1 Scene 3) These prophecies from three strangers are taken without question and probably without good judgment. Just the thought that he may be King clouds his thoughts and ambition takes over. The witches can predict the future, they can add temptation, and influence Macbeth, but they cannot control his destiny.
She is initially able to be involved in the treacherous deeds that are needed to bring about the prophecy quickly, but as the play progresses the weight of the merciless deeds fill her with remorse. The remorse and pain she feels for her wicked ways cause Lady Macbeth to lose control of her life and wither away until the weight of her deeds causes her to die. Lady Macbeth’s wish is partially granted, her mind becomes evil and enables her to do horrific things, but her soul remains pure and unsure of her actions and her remorse for her wicked ways leads to her destruction. Lady Macbeth invokes evil spirits, asking them to grant her extreme cruelty and to feel no remorse or pity for her victims. She asks the evil spirits to grant her these ills so she can take over Macbeth’s prophecy to prevent him from backing out, “Yet do I fear thy