Literature Module #2.6, Death Comes for the Archbishop Prompt: What role does the landscape play in the story? In what ways can it be seen as a character? All She Needs is Pen and Paper “The heavy, lead-coloured drops were driven slantingly through the air by an icy wind from the peak,” (74). Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop holds within it startling imagery that forms picturesque aspects of the terrain that no one could mistake. Lacking such details would bring a dullness to her works. Therefore, her marvelous pen never ceased to weave a blanket of pictures with ink that made her matchless writing style famous among her readers. It is effortless to notice the brilliancy of the clarity formed beneath the tip of Cather’s pen.
As though it were a character itself, Willa’s descriptive outlook on the lay of the land paints a vivid picture within the reader’s mind. Although much of Cather’sDeath Comes for the Archbishop is written in the perspective of Bishop Latour, much of her work is composed of not only his story, but also of the sketch of the landscape in which he travels. He becomes enveloped in the scene, almost as though a part of it himself, “In the golden October weather the Bishop,” who was on a journey to replenish the Faith in his diocese, “set off to visit the Indian missions in the west,” (94). It completes the piece. Acting as a character itself, the account of the terrain builds high the arches of the churches and the gusty dunes of sand. Without it, Bishop Latour’s adventures would be hardly so captivating. Cather has no need for illustrations for the eye, she has already sketched them wholly within the lines of every phrase. While Latour and his companions travel throughout Mexico, aiding in missionary work, they almost become part of the landscape. As they trek the long road west of Albuquerque, the place “was like a country of dry ashes; no juniper, no rabbit brush, nothing but thickets of withered, dead-looking cactus, and patches of wild pumpkin,” (101). The formation of the land around them becomes as important to the story as they themselves. Picturing the missionaries on horseback riding through the desert is completed by the statement involving the land at which they are traversing. It is a graceful, uncomplicated beginning of a chapter, starting off to a fluent beginning like the gentle trickle of a stream flowing over cupped hands. Without Cather’s careful wording, the arid image fades. As much of the landscape as the terrain itself, the missionaries are characterized through the site. “As the morning wore on they had to make their way through a sand-storm which quite obscured the sun,” (102). The setting is as much a part of the scene as the characters themselves. “A little after mid-day a burst of wind sent the snow whirling in coils about the two travelers, and a great storm broke,” (145). Willa Cather’s imagery tells her story. Like a tale told of actions and adventures, Cather’s story is told through the lay of the land. It emphasizes every step taken and illustrates to the very grain of sand around the characters, coloring the mood and creating the vivid outlook on all that surrounds the missionaries. In her Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa has no need for sketches or paintings to picture her tale-all she needs are her pen and paper to compose the greatest of imagery.
Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop: A Narrative Though many reviewers of Willa Cather's, Death Comes to the Archbishop, had difficulty classifying the book, Cather herself preferred to call it a narrative rather than a novel. I tend to agree with Cather. One definition from Webster's New World College Dictionary defines "narrative" as "a story", which is then defined as, "the telling of a happening or connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious". A novel on the other hand is defined as having, "a more or less complex plot or pattern of events." Where most books tend to follow certain guidelines as to plot, Cather chooses to take a different route.
I noticed how white and well-shaped his own hands were. They looked calm, somehow, and skilled. His eyes were melancholy, and were set back deep under his brow. His face was ruggedly formed, but it looked like ashes – like something from which all the warmth and light had dried out. Everything about this old man was in keeping with his dignified manner (24)
Throughout the book Peace Like A River, there are several mentions to landscape and setting. I believe that the landscape is a analogy for the main character, Jeremiah’s, health. Throughout the book there are obvious analogies such as the badlands and winter. But those can be talked about later. In the start of the book they are at August Shultz’s farm hunting geese. He describes the landscape as “soaked swaths with a december smelling wind” (Page7) from this we can say for certain that Jeremiah is in good health.This could also mean a fresh start. This setting comes into play a few times and can mean different things contextually. Throughout the second chapter, through chapter 10, the landscape does not play a huge
Responding to the criticism that Death Comes for the Archbishop is not a novel, Willa Cather proposed that the work was a narrative. Her choice of the word narrative signifies that the structure of Death Comes for the Archbishop is closer to that of a biography.
shows in Under Milk Wood that he is Able to write in the opaque poetic
Throughout his villanelle, “Saturday at the Border,” Hayden Carruth continuously mentions the “death-knell” (Carruth 3) to reveal his aged narrator’s anticipation of his upcoming death. The poem written in conversation with Carruth’s villanelle, “Monday at the River,” assures the narrator that despite his age, he still possesses the expertise to write a well structured poem. Additionally, the poem offers Carruth’s narrator a different attitude with which to approach his writing, as well as his death, to alleviate his feelings of distress and encourage him to write with confidence.
Privett, Anne. "Appropriating Nature: Gilpin, the picturesque and Landscape Gardenting." Appropriating Nature: A Presentation for English 409. 10 Feb. 2005. Khaghan Parker, Anne Privett and Luke Ingberg. 18 Feb, 2005 2006. http://members.shaw.ca/weaters/index.htm
Percy Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” (1816) and William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” (1805), both tell the story of the individuals meetings with an impressively, beautiful mountain landscape. In Mont Blanc, Shelley describes the icy glacial capped peaks of the Swiss Alp’s, whereas in The Prelude, Wordsworth describes his meetings with nature and his interactions with the landscape. Both these poems focus on the beauty of the landscape, and thrive off their own personal experiences which they have had with nature. These poems however have a strong representation of the sublime and the effects this theory has on them personally and sensually. Beauty is also present in these poems; however there is a difference as beauty indulges in the aesthetic experience of equilibrium and synchronization, whereas the sublime focuses on the senses such as your mind and imagination. Leighton (1984) believes you can see the difference as, ‘the picturesque world would be exemplified by variety, the beautiful by smoothness and the sublime by magnitude’, showing just how differentiated they are. Both these poems both have different meanings and morals, and both authors have different beliefs
In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather does not portray Bishop Latour and father Vaillant as hero, saints, or martyrs, but as two priests who do not live glorious lives and yet leave behind a glorious legacy through their missionary work and spreading of Catholicism in the Southwest. Bishop Latour and Father Vaillant did not live and die in vain, but rather created a legacy. At the end of the priests’ lives, they look back on their journey of life and feel a sense of happiness even in death because they did everything they wanted to do in life and they made their lives a work of art. In the eyes of the people they helped, they are heroes and they exemplify how everyone can be a hero. Bishop Latour and Father Vaillant are brave,
The diction and detail used by Willa Cather in the book A Lost Lady, paints a picture in the readers mind by her prose selection of diction and arrangements of graphic detail, which conveys a feeling of passion, sadness, tense anger and unending happiness through Neil Herbert. Throughout the book, Cather describes Neil Herbert¡¯s life from his childhood, to his teenage years, and then to his adulthood with surpassing diction and supporting detail.
As readers scan Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” they can easily find elements of a Gothic story. The story’s evident decay and death, suspenseful setting, and passionate narrator legitimize its place in Gothic literature. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe devises a nerve-wracking setting by establishing the Montresor’s catacombs, a place comprised of “long wall of bones, with casks and puncheons,” as the setting (110). As the bones and caskets reappear throughout the story, the appearance of death and decay is clear throughout the story. The presence of death unnerves the readers, and as the characters travel deeper into the catacombs, the suspense grows as readers wait for the foreshadowed deadly end. In addition to the hair-raising
The beach is somewhat dull in the way of landscape. On the beach there's sand, just sand. Maybe there is a seashell here or there, but mostly just sand. However, the mountains are diverse and vivid. There are more colors in an acre of mountain landscape than in twenty miles of ope...
Nature inspires Wordsworth poetically. Nature gives a landscape of seclusion that implies a deepening of the mood of seclusion in Wordsworth's mind.
diversity of the landscape. The movie has shown vast rural fields and the urbanized emerald