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Book 1: The Cruciform Tree
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 girl leads Father Latour to her grandfather Benito’s house, where a large family is eating dinner. Benito believes that the Blessed Virgin has led Latour to this settlement to perform baptisms and sanctify marriages. Most of the marriages in this settlement have happened without the sacrament because the nearby priests charge too much for their services. Benito confesses to Latour that he has no papers for his land, and so he worries the Americans will take it away.
The seven sacraments, a bedrock of Catholic faith, can only be performed by a priest—and in a vicariate as disparate as this one, contact with a priest was far from guaranteed. Latour’s meeting with Benito hints at a common theme: both the American colonizers and the (mostly Spanish) priests in the area often take advantage of their constituents and parishioners, using the volatile political situation of the day to their own advantage.
Themes
The family tells Father Latour that they live happily, spinning their own wool and raising their own food. Benito’s ancestors came to this land around “when the French killed their king,” and now, his grandchildren resent the Americans as “infidels.” Latour explains that though he himself is French, he has seen many devout Catholic Americans around the Great Lakes.
Even in the absence of more organized forms of religion, Benito and his family’s modest way of living signals that they share a set of values with Latour. Just as the prologue made clear that Latour’s life in New Mexico was intrinsically linked to European politicking, Benito dates his own small community back to a far-off, pivotal event in European history. Despite the remote locale, Latour is never far from the currents of global history.
Themes
After dinner is done, Latour examines the old, hand-carved wooden figurines on the mantle; though many Mexican homes have these figurines, Latour notes that no two carvings have ever looked the same. Next to Mary and Joseph is a man on a horse. One of Benito’s grandchildren explains that this is Santiago, a missionary and the patron saint of horses.
Throughout his travels, Latour will frequently admire these wood carvings, which are a testament both to their creators’ artistry and to their depth of care. It is telling that Santiago, such an essential saint in this land of horse-travel, is not well-known to Latour—everywhere he looks, he is reminded of how differently his native Catholicism shows up in this new land.
Themes
That night, Latour thinks about the luck of his arrival to this secluded town. He knows that if Joseph Vaillant were here, he would say that it was a “miracle”—and Latour, too, believes that Mary has led him here, after he prayed to her at the cruciform tree. But while Latour sees his journey as natural, he knows that “his dear Joseph must always have the miracle very direct and spectacular, not with Nature, but against it.”
This vital passage shows just how much Latour needs his old friend Vaillant in order to make sense of the world. Even if the two men are radically different, Latour understands his own perspectives by contrasting and comparing them with friend’s. Latour’s insistence that the miracle of the cruciform tree is “with Nature” instead of “against it” speaks to a vital question in the novel—is nature meant to be changed and fought, or to be embraced as it is?
Themes
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The next day, after a long morning of marriages and baptisms and confessions, Latour walks to the source of the stream, where the water emerges from the ground. Benito showed Latour arrowheads he found here, and a Spanish sword, prompting Latour to reflect on the generations who had come here. “It was older than history,” Latour thinks, “like those well heads in his own country where the Roman settlers had set up the image of a river goddess, and later the Christian priests had planted a cross.”
The arrowheads point to the fact that indigenous history and belief perseveres, even in this settler-colonial, Catholic community. But this complex, uneasy co-existence is nothing new; as Latour points out, the same tension was present in ancient Rome itself. And indeed, the more time he spends in the fledgling United States, the more Latour will begin to feel that his life in the desert Southwest is similar to the experience of early Christians.
Themes
Cheered by Benito’s effort to remember his prayers, Latour feels a renewed sense of hope about his district. He tries not to worry about the revolt that happened several years ago, led by Father Martínez, the Spanish priest at Taos. Under Latour’s hand, the new bishop thinks to himself, this “tyranny” is almost over.
Father Martínez will eventually pose more of a challenge to Latour than anything else in his vicariate. Though the novel commends Latour’s hopefulness, this moment also foreshadows the fact that Latour has more reforming in store than he thinks.
Themes
Literary Devices
