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Book 1: The Bishop Chez Lui
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Death Comes for the Archbishop, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Spirituality vs. the Material World
Friendship and Compromise
Humanity’s Relationship with Nature
Colonialism, Industry, and Loss
Memory, Death, and Afterlives
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Latour is awoken by a church bell that sounds like an Angelus. As he rises, he imagines first that he is in Rome, and then that he is farther east, in Jerusalem. At breakfast, Vaillant reveals that Latour’s senses were correct—the bell is an Angelus, brought up from Mexico City hundreds of years ago. Though there is no church to hold it in, Vaillant has rigged a scaffold and trained a local to ring it.
An Angelus is a particular kind of church bell that is rung three times in a row, popular across Europe and in Jerusalem. In this case, the Angelus both ties the New Mexican landscape to the vistas of early Christianity—a common linkage in Latour’s mind—and signals just how quickly Vaillant has integrated himself into this new community.
Themes
Literary Devices
Latour wonders about the origins of the bell, reflecting on a rumor that such bells are made from Moorish silver; if so, that would mean the bell had Muslim roots in addition to Christian ones. But Vaillant is not interested in this “scholarly” speculation. Instead, he wants to tell Latour about Our Lady of Guadeloupe, one of the most important Catholic sites in the New World.
Latour’s interest in moments of religious syncretism—when two faiths are interwoven—perhaps reflects his understanding that Catholicism in the Southwest is already being shaped by and melded with indigenous belief systems.
Themes
The story of Our Lady of Guadeloupe begins in December 1531, when a poor boy was running down a hill in Mexico City to attend Mass. Suddenly, he was stopped by the Virgin Mary herself, who asked the boy to build a church in the very spot where she’d appeared. But when the boy told the local bishop, the bishop doubted his story. Dejected, the boy went home to care for his sick uncle.
Our Lady of Guadeloupe is a real statue, and one that played a prominent role in cementing Catholicism’s place in Mexico. Today, the archdiocese of Santa Fe emphasizes the continued importance of this statue for nearby communities: “our Blessed Mother,” the diocese says, “has always had a special place in the hearts of the people of New Mexico,” so Our Lady of Guadeloupe represents a “truly unique” strand of Catholic faith.
Themes
Several days later, the boy ventured out again (this time by a different route) to get medicine for his uncle. But again, the Virgin Mary stopped him, requesting that he build a church and promising his uncle would be healed soon. When the boy asked for proof of her existence, Mary told him to gather roses near the rock. Though it was winter, a lush crop of roses miraculously appeared, proving the boy’s story to be true. When he showed the bishop the flowers, the bishop fell on his knees—and the boy realized his clothes now showed a painting of Mary, exactly as she had appeared on the hill.
The sudden appearance of greenery (in this case roses) in an otherwise barren area echoes the cruciform tree that helped lead Latour to water. Though this story is more obviously miraculous than Latour’s discovery of water, in both cases, natural abundance is a sign of divine presence on earth.
Themes
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Vaillant is very moved by this story; he thinks that miracles are the most essential way of spreading faith. But though Latour admires his friend’s strong feeling, he sees things differently—to him, miracles happen “upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.”
As with the interpretation of the cruciform tree, Latour uses his divergence from Vaillant to make sense of his own perspective and beliefs. Vaillant thinks in spectacular, emotional terms, whereas Latour is cautious and observant.
Themes
