If you look closely at the text of Death Comes for the Archbishop, you'll notice that Willa Cather spends a painstaking amount of time describing the New Mexico landscape and all of the ways that people have become connected to it.
The Navajo people, for example, consider the territory of New Mexico to be a major part of their religion, just as many other faiths believe that Jerusalem is a necessary part of theirs. You could say that New Mexico is a character unto itself in this book. Sometimes it gives and sometimes it takes. It's a harsh place to live, but it's also beautiful to those who know it well. And by the end of the book, Father Latour realizes that he can't imagine living anywhere else, not even in his native France.
Questions About Visions of New Mexico
- Why do the Native Ácoma people live on top of a giant rock according to this book? How does this choice tend to affect their daily way of life?
- What are some of the first things that Father Latour thinks about New Mexico when he arrives there in Chapter 1? How do these opinions change as the story unfolds?
- List at least ten adjectives you would associate with New Mexico based on the descriptions Willa Cather gives in this novel.
Chew on This
In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather shows us that North America will always be more of a "home" to Native Americans than it will be for white settlers and their descendants.
Death Comes for the Archbishop reminds us that fulfillment can sometimes come from living in places that feel very foreign at first.