The Genesis of Death Comes for the Archbishop

Abstract

rOR WILLA CATHER as for Henri Bergson, whom she admired, ii literary creation-that is, the choice of subject matter and the technique enforced by it-was an intuitive rather than an intellectual process. When the novelist, according to Miss Cather, deals with material that is deeply a part of his conscious and subconscious being, he has and less power of choice about the moulding of it. It seems to be there of itself, already moulded. If he tries to meddle with its vague outline, to twist it into some categorical shape, above all if he tries to adapt or modify its mood, he destroys its value. In working with this material he finds that he has little to do with literary devices.1 Certainly in Death Comes for the Archbishop Miss Cather was dealing with familiar or as she would say, her own material, which she knew instinctively. Yet this of all her many novels was candidly and deliberately experimental in form. Preferring the term narrative to that of novel, she envisaged the Archbishop as a legend, in the medieval tradition of Christian saints' lore, and thus of self-imposed necessity she eschewed all obvious dramatic treatment. Instead of the rising action and complexities which characterize the plots of more conventional novels, Miss Cather employed episodic simplicity, giving equal stress to each incident. The incidents, then, she selected with exceeding care, not for the evocation of suspense but for a massive cumulative intention. It was to this end that she integrated the details of theme, plot, characterization, and mood which make up the novel. As she says: