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Book 3: Jacinto
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
As Latour approaches Ácoma, he is amazed by the giant rocks that rise, cathedral-like, from the flat ground; each rock also seems to be mirrored by a thick cloud formation in the sky. Latour feels that there is “great antiquity” in this area, “as if, with all the materials for world-making assembled, the Creator had desisted, gone away and left everything on the point of being brought together.” Latour also notes that, unlike in the plains of Kansas and the rest of the Midwest, the sky in the mountains is always animated and alive.
As Latour, Ferrand and others have noted, the dramatic rock-and-sky vistas that dominate New Mexico feel at once prehistoric and holy. Implicitly, Latour’s words here also hint that, since this area has not yet been “brought together,” it is up to Latour and his vicar to unify this region, finishing the project that “the Creator” himself started.
Themes
Literary Devices
Finally, Jacinto points to a far-away mesa and explains that it is Ácoma. From a distance, Latour can just barely make out the outlines of the village on the hard rock surface. Though Latour cannot fathom why any group would set up camp on such an isolated spot, Jacinto makes the point that the Ácoma people had no other choice—it was escape to the safety of the rock or face death from conflict with other tribes. Indeed, the steps have only been breached once, by Spaniards.
The Ácoma is a real tribe, and members of the tribe still live on this isolated stone mesa. The fact that only the Spaniards have ever broached this rock fortress speaks to the fact that colonization was a sort of break in history, bringing a level of destruction and violence unlike anything that had preceded it.
Themes
Latour notes the strange literalness of this rock: “the Ácomas,” he marvels, “must share the universal human longing for something permanent,” but “they had their idea in substance.” Latour and Jacinto tie up their mules and approach the narrow steps up the mesa, grabbing the handholds whenever the passage gets too tight. It is about to rain, and Jacinto thinks this will put the Ácomas in a more receptive mood. Sure enough, it starts to thunder. Latour thinks again that this is what the first Creation must have looked like.
Later, Latour reflects that—in contrast to Europeans—indigenous tribes tend to embrace the “substance” of their landscapes rather than altering them. It is telling, therefore, that the Ácoma sought shelter not by building a fortress but by seizing on safety that already existed, taking their cues from what nature or divinity had long ago “created.”
Themes
Once the storm clears, Latour inspects the town. He notices that there is no soil, except for in the churchyard; the rest of the houses are grouped together on the stone. Latour also notices the giant stone church, which depresses him with its rigidity and lack of color. When he does Mass there, he feels that the people of Ácoma are like “antediluvian creatures,” old and “shut within their shells.”
The term “antediluvian,” which refers to events that took place before the biblical flood and Noah’s famous ark, will recur frequently throughout the novel. Sometimes, the term is merely Latour’s way of expressing his respect for this seemingly ancient landscape—but here, the term is infantilizing and critical, reflecting Latour’s own prejudice to the tribe he claims to want to help.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Feeling spiritually defeated, Latour inquires about the origins of this massive church. Jacinto explains that the church, along with the mule trail, had been ordered to be built by a powerful Spanish priest in around 1600. Latour feels that the priest must have been guided by “worldly ambition” more than either spiritual aspiration or the desires of the Ácoma people. After all, all that heavy rock and giant timber had to be carried from miles away, and then up all of those treacherous steps.
Rock formations and stone churches are often used, in the story, to symbolize an ancient, biblical era. But here, Latour questions why this long-ago priest might build a stone church when the landscape itself could create the same epic feeling. In addition to forcing unnecessary labor, then, Latour critiques this previous priest for “worldly ambition”; in focusing on his tangible, architectural legacy, this priest lost sight of what his parishioners and faith actually needed from him. (Ironically, Latour will later do almost exactly the same thing.)
Themes
When Latour examines the church in greater detail, he notices a great garden, filled with now-dead peach trees. This cloistered garden makes him imagine the early missionaries, who might have closed their eyes and pretended they were in the Pyrenees, rather than on this remote rock. As the sun goes down, he feels homesick for Europe. He resolves to learn more about this strange, grand church.
The Pyrenees are a mountain range on the border of France and Spain. In trying to make this desert landscape feel like European greenery, then, these old priests were refusing to take the landscape on its own terms—and thus forcing a kind of cultivation the land could not quite handle. Moreover, since fruit trees often symbolize priestly virtue, the dead peach trees here signal that something has gone very awry in Ácoma.
Themes
