Willa Cathers Death Comes for the Archbishop :: Willa Cather Death Comes for the Archbishop

Willa Cathers Death Comes for the ArchbishopA novel should be something that is easy to define. One would expect the novel to ache a plot, a central theme, a central character and a consistent style? The truth is that all of these things argon important but non specifically necessary. Willa Cathers Death Comes for the Archbishop cannot be easily classified as a novel in normal terms. It lacks a central plot that carries the work from stock to some sort of an ending. It does, however, contain central characters, themes, and a clearly consistent style, but the story that is told consists of small vignettes.Cather would prefer to call Death Comes for the Archbishop a autobiography as opposed to a novel. In terms of semantics a narrative is defined as an account of events anything that is narrated (Holman 336). She is not necessarily wrong, but the book is sure enough more than simply an account of events. A novel, on the other hand is defined as any extended fictional narrative (Ho lman 350). This definition would be to apply to Death Comes for the Archbishop except that it is not an extended narrative, but a series of narratives.Truthfully, one cannot read Cathers book as if it were a novel. in that respect are many separate stories within the Olivares, Buck Scales, Jacinto, Padre Martinez, and Friar Baltazar of Acoma who was dropped of a cliff. The stories are all held together by the common characters of Father Latour and Father Vaillant. There are also themes that run through most of the stories. The idea of justice seems to be important to the author as well as an important decompose of life in the southwest during this period. Maybe more important to the coherency of the book as a whole is the concept of loyalty. From the relationship of the boyhood friends who then travel Catholic missionaries in America to the two cream-colored mules, Contento and Angelica, who are always ridden together and have a great affection for each other (Cather 60).