Death Comes for the Archbishop | Hallowed Ground: Landscape as Hagiography in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop
In the following essay, Kuhlken explores the symbolic meaning of landscape—specifically the Sangre de Cristo mountains—in Death Comes for the Archbishop.
Two fleeting glimpses of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop have eluded the critical attention of scholars. The first of these two epiphanies appears three-quarters of the way into the narrative, so we too will proceed to this revelation as though traipsing on mules with Cather during one of her pivotal visits to the Southwest. To begin, we will consider why the land is central to the novel’s meaning and see how the text’s mood is determined by the desert landscape. To appreciate Cather’s art is to understand the...
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