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Willa CatherA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Content Warning: The source text contains dated and at times offensive terms for Indigenous people. When not directly quoting the source text, this guide replaces the term “Indian” with Indigenous.
In the summer of 1848, three cardinals and a missionary bishop dine together in a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome. They’re discussing the founding of a new apostolic vicarate in New Mexico, a territory that the US recently annexed. The cardinals are relatively unfamiliar with New Mexico and are only tangentially interested in the region. The bishop, a missionary in the Great Lakes region, explains that New Mexico, formerly “New Spain,” has long been the “cradle of the faith in the New World” (3). At the time, the New Mexico churches fall under the purview of the Bishop of Durango, whose home is nearly 1,500 miles from Santa Fe, the seat of the Catholic Church in New Mexico. The Bishop of Durango has a candidate in mind for the new vicarate, but the bishop at the meeting argues for choosing someone else because the bishop in this new territory will one day wield tremendous power in the church. Although the region is dangerous and both the churches and their parishioners are still given to quasi-pagan practices, Catholicism was introduced hundreds of years ago and is, in its own way, thriving. He’s certain that with the proper guidance, the church can increase its influence. He proposes a Franciscan missionary, the young Jean-Marie Latour, for the role.
In autumn of 1851, a solitary horseman and a pack mule make their way through a treacherous portion of central New Mexico. It’s Father Jean-Marie Latour, the newly appointed Bishop of New Mexico. The young priest is at the tail end of a long journey with fellow priest Father Vaillant that began in the Great Lakes region and was supposed to end in Santa Fe. However, upon arriving in the city after more than a year on the road, he finds that the area clergy doesn’t recognize his authority. They claim they’re under the Bishop of Durango’s control and have never heard of Latour. Chagrined, he sets off alone on horseback to see the Bishop of Durango, whom he’s certain is aware of his post. During his journey, however, he becomes lost. He and his animals are in desperate need of water, and he fears they won’t reach their destination. As he travels through an endless maze of red rocks and juniper trees, he encounters a gnarled tree in the shape of a crude crucifix and stops to pray. Soon after, the horse and the mule smell water, saving Latour. At the small river, he meets a young girl who, by her appearance, is clearly Catholic. She expresses great excitement to have met a priest for the first time in her life and runs to find her family.
Father Latour learns that the small settlement he happened upon is aptly called “Agua Segreta,” or “Hidden Water.” The people there, devoutly Catholic even though they’ve never had a priest in their church, explain the history of their settlement. He notes with relish the many finely carved statues of saints in the area’s homes and thinks to himself how different these saint statues are in different regions of the world. He performs weddings, baptisms, and blessings and is moved by the hospitality he receives.
On Christmas in Santa Fe, Father Latour sits down with Father Vaillant for their holiday meal. The issue of Father Latour’s appointment has been settled, and the region now recognizes his authority. The two men discuss their vast new territory and decide to start small, focusing on the area in and around Santa Fe. They lament the lack of fresh vegetables during winter in the desert, fondly recalling their youth in France, where gardens were common and they ate well. Despite the difficulty of life in this new territory, the priests feel energized and ready to tackle what life has in store for them.
Father Latour wakes to a church bell and momentarily wonders if he’s in Rome. He learns from Father Vaillant that the bell was brought to Mexico hundreds of years ago. The town has no church to hang it in, but Vaillant arranged for it to be hung from a scaffold and then trained a local man to ring it. To help familiarize Latour with the region, Vaillant shares the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which he recently heard from a parishioner: In December 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to a local boy in Mexico. She asked him to build a church in her honor on the spot where she appeared. The boy immediately informed his local bishop, but the bishop didn’t believe that his vision was truly of the Virgin Mary herself and told the boy that he needed a sign. Despondent, the boy left the meeting, but the Virgin later appeared to him again. She healed his sick uncle and told him to gather roses to take to the bishop. The boy found roses where the Virgin indicated they would be and took them to the bishop. Because it was winter, the bishop realized that the boy’s vision was indeed the Virgin Mary and agreed to build a shrine to her. Vaillant finds the story moving and asserts that such miracles do more than doctrine does to convince would-be converts. Latour isn’t sure he agrees but understands how important the Shrine to the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe is to local Catholics.
In mid-March, Father Vaillant is on the way back from Albuquerque. He stops at the home of a wealthy Mexican named Manuel Lujon to perform marriages and baptisms. Happy to finally have a member of the clergy on his property, Lujon welcomes the priest with open arms. Lujon’s family members remark on the priest’s ugliness, but they too feel fortunate to be in the presence of a man of God. After performing marriages and baptisms (in that order, because holy matrimony should come before the birth of children), Vaillant tours the property with his host. He reveals that he was swindled by a horse dealer and that his animal is sadly incapable of taking him back to Santa Fe. Lujon owns a pair of fine mules, highly prized for their unusual coloring. They’re his pride and joy. Vaillant convinces Manuel Lujon to part with the mules and leaves for Santa Fe, intent on giving the second mule to Father Latour.
Fathers Latour and Vaillant are riding their new mules through a rainstorm in the Truchas mountains. It’s early spring, and the weather is unpredictable. The two men are caught in a heavy storm, but a man who lives in a small hut by the side of the road offers them shelter. He instantly fills both priests with apprehension, but they need rest, and their mules need food. While he’s tending to the animals, his young wife warns the two priests that they must leave immediately or their lives are at risk. They believe her and ask the man to return their mules. When he protests, they draw their gun and escape. The man’s wife, who has followed them, appears and begs for their help. They learn that her husband is a wicked man who habitually murders travelers. They send for a magistrate, and the man is apprehended. The woman, named Magdalena, begs to go to Santa Fe. As she and the priests are talking, the famed scout Kit Carson appears. He knows Magdalena and offers her a position cooking in his home. Her husband is hanged, and the priests return to Santa Fe. Later, a group of nuns arrives to start a school and put Magdalena in charge of the kitchen. She’s grateful for the job and happy to work for the church.
The novel’s Prologue begins the story, framing it within a conversation between several high-ranking clergy in Rome discussing a remote new territory the US recently acquired from Spain, where they plan to found a new diocese. This scene immediately establishes the novel’s interest in the church’s exertion of control, even in the challenging American frontier location of Santa Fe, New Mexico, which they identify as the seat of Catholicism in the territory. More broadly, this framing scene establishes the importance of religion to the story, introducing the novel’s central theme, Faith and Religion, and its concern with the US frontier. Many of Willa Cather’s works detail life on the edges of an expanding American nation, and the setting of Death Comes for the Archbishop situates it similarly to several of her other novels.
The journey that Fathers Latour and Vaillant take on their way to Santa Fe and then Latour’s difficult trek to Durango are key early elements of the novel’s plot. They travel through wild, rugged, and unforgiving country that presents many difficulties. Many of Cather’s other works contain similar images of the American frontier, and setting becomes more than just place in these novels. The wildness of the New Mexico landscape symbolizes the difficulty inherent in American expansion, the isolation that early settlers experienced on the frontier, and the grit and determination it took to establish their lives in such areas. Both Latour and Vaillant are aware of the challenges that lie ahead when they agree to build the church’s new diocese in the rugged area of New Mexico and are thus characters who both shape and are shaped by the frontier.
On Latour’s solo journey, he loses his way on one of the many wild and twisting foot paths that forms a spur trail from the main path. He stops when he encounters a cruciform (cross-shaped) tree, and after spending a few minutes praying at its base, his prayers are miraculously answered when his animals find water, and he can continue his journey. This tree is one of the novel’s key symbols, representing the importance of faith and religion to Latour and the extent to which his faith in God guides him through his life choices. Latour’s faith drove him first to missionary work in the Great Lakes region and now to the wilds of New Mexico. He defines himself against the anchor of his deep faith and his willingness to endure great difficulties in the name of God.
The novel continues to explore faith and religion through its discussion of the miracle of the Virgen de Guadalupe (or Virgin of Guadalupe). Latour and Vaillant learn that the Virgin Mary appeared to an ordinary working man outside Mexico city and asked him to build a shrine in her honor. The official whom he approached about this miracle initially doubted him, but the Virgin Mary proved herself by sending the man to gather roses, a difficult feat during the winter. The man found roses even in the bitter cold, and a shrine was built to the Virgin Mary where she first appeared. Although Latour finds church doctrine more important than miracles, he learns that to local New World Catholics, miracles are often more inspiring than scripture. He’s told, “Doctrine is well enough for the wise, Jean, but this miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love” (35). Thus begins the novel’s meditation on the many paths that exist toward faith and God. Latour and Vaillant must learn that their experiences of religion might differ from those of their parishioners, and they indeed come to accept that religion is multifaceted and different for different believers.
In these early chapters, Kit Carson makes his first appearance in a scene that represents the real Carson’s personality. He helps Latour and Magdalena, a woman who has endured an abusive marriage to a violent man. He’s helpful, self-effacing, and kind—all qualities the real Carson was known for. A historical figure who was central to the early days of American (US) influence in New Mexico, Carson was a fur trapper, scout, guide, military man, and “Indian Agent” and did much to further US interests in the region. Famous even during his lifetime, he was an important bridge between the Mexican, US settler, and Indigenous communities, alluding to the theme of Colonization, Assimilation, and Cultural Differences. Period readers would have instantly recognized Carson, whose character would have contextualized the story and established a firm connection to the history of the American Southwest. Carson becomes another of the novel’s figures who represent the tension between isolation and community on the frontier: A loner accustomed to spending long stretches of time in the wilderness, he was also a good friend and helpful fellow citizen to many. Cather’s novels abound with characters who experience both the solitude of the frontier and the closely-knit communities that frontier life fostered. In this story, Carson is one of these characters, both shaping and shaped by the landscape and thus introducing another important theme: Friendship and Community Against the Backdrop of Frontier Isolation. Carson made his mark on New Mexico, and his time in the territory made him stronger and more resilient.
By Willa Cather
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