Landscape

Throughout Death Comes for the Archbishop, Cather presents lavish descriptions of the southwestern landscape. With color and texture, she paints pictures of the mountains, deserts, mesas, plants, and vast skies of the region. She early on establishes the importance of the landscape, devoting the majority of the first, lengthy paragraph to describing the features of the land in which Latour finds himself. The color red is everywhere, a telling insight into the perception of the devout Catholic Latour. Red is the color of passion and suffering, and even in this foreign land, Latour finds the heart of the faith that has brought him there. When, in the next paragraph, he discovers a juniper tree in the shape of a cross, the reader begins to understand how the landscape will play a role in Latour's experience and how he will project himself onto it. Latour is a serene and...