Title
Document Type
Freshman Seminar Essay
Publication Date
1986
Excerpt
Sitting close to a television screen is an ineffective way of viewing a show. Granted, each horizontal line across the screen is a solid piece of light with definite changes of the color spectrum determining each line's individual pattern, but it does not make a picture. Unless the entire collection of these horizontal patterns is looked at as a whole from a distance, the perceived images could be misleading and senseless. Tony in Bless Me Ultima also discovered that viewing things as a whole was much more adequate than as separate pieces. Tony, though, was not trying to watch a picture on a screen. Instead, he was trying to find an adequate god or religion. something that would ultimately give his life peace and meaning. He found the individual gods and religions of others coherent in terms of prescribing ways of action and belief within their own boundaries but incoherent and inadequate in the world as a whole which reached beyond those limits. Tony needed a god that would hold fast in all areas of life. Ultima's subtle advice directed Tony to finding a fulfilling god and religion in the rubble of shattered truths.
Recommended Citation
Manglesdorf, Kristine, "The Wide Angle (1986)" (1986). The Valpo Core Reader. 488.
http://scholar.valpo.edu/core_reader/488