Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop - A Narrative
As I was gathering information on the World Wide Web for my discussion for class, I encountered snippets of the debate as to the classification of Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. Having "thumbed through" a few arguments and some reader responses to her books and having read the work, I have come to a safe conclusion: If Cather would like her book remembered as a narrative, then we should respect her wishes and let it lie at that.
The reason? It's not a novel. At least not a good one.
Cather can write and what she did in DCA proves her talent. Her descriptions are intriguing and she can paint a wonderful landscape with words that any reader can feel completely encompassed in. Her characters are solid; you love them or hate them and you have a number of reasons to defend your position. All the bits and pieces of DCA are sound. No, the problem is not with her technical style so much as her overall composition. There's no plot.
What Cather has essentially given us is a collection of anecdotes about a couple of Catholic priests spreading religion in newly acquired plots of American soil. It's true that by the end of the book, the stories ebb themselves together and remarkably even make a strong impression, however, the last quarter of a book is not the strongest locus to begin a plot. The reader would like a reason or even a clue or mild suggestion as to what the book is going to be about by the time he is half way through it.
I was pretty sure it had something to do with those mules as they seemed to work themselves back into the story a number of times. (I was quite positive of this when the one time Father Latour decided not to take his pearl-colored mule on an emergency trip and instead opted for the larger army mule, it died in the snowstorm, thus saving noble Angelica.) Alas, it wasn't about the mules.
One loose definition of a narrative is simply the telling of a series of events.
While in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the highly-regarded American novelist Willa Sibert Cather was captivated by the story of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and his friend, Father Macheboeuf. She was so enchanted by these two men that she decided to write a novel based on the events of their lives serving as Roman Catholic clergy in New Mexico. Her 1927 novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, tells the story of Bishop Jean Latour and his friend, Father Joseph Vaillant, as they travel to New Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century to strengthen the Catholic faith of the natives. In Death Comes for the Archbishop, the natives of New Mexico are devout, but their religion has been corrupted by superstition because there have been no priests to instruct them on their faith. “This country was evangelized in fifteen hundred, by the Franciscan Fathers. It has been
implications, as I see them, of such a narrative – that is, a narrative seemingly determined not to
Narrative, it seems banal to observe, opens a space. This space is not so much a place of play for unlimited possibilities (although in the best of possible worlds it might yet be) as somewhere determined, always, in advance, by the future anterior: what will have happened and how it will already have taken place lure us through stories to their ends, become the end that shines through from the very start. Reading for the ending: in narrative, the end justifies the means; the end is the means.
Jim Rice loved the way tanning made him look and feel, that is, until he became personally affected by the dangers that came with the frivolous glitz and glamour of a nice tan.
In the simplest form, there is a basic structural pattern to narratives, as expressed through Tzvetan Todorov’s explanation of narrative movement between two equilibriums. A narrative begins in a stable position until something causes disequilibrium, however, by the end of the story, the equilibrium is re-established, though it is different than the beginning (O’Shaughnessy 1999: 268). Joseph Cam...
Although Antigone has a bad reputation with Creon, and possibly Ismene, for being insubordinate, she stays true to her values throughout the entire play by following the law of gods, not so that she could appease them, but because she admired its value of honor and respect to loved ones that have passed away. This devotion and determination to give her brother a proper burial shows the true essence of her being: that loyalty to family is in fact hold above all else.
The standard definition of narrative is an account that contains a beginning, middle and end. Likewise, it is important that it is
The “General Prologue” provides us with no evidence as to the character of the Nun’s Priest. Only in the prologue to his tale do we finally get a glimpse of who he might be, albeit rather obtusely. As Harry Bailey rather disparagingly remarks: “Telle us swich thyng as may oure hertes glade./Be blithe, though thou ryde upon a jade” (p.235, ll2811-2812). I say this cautiously because much criticism has surrounded the supposed character of the Nun’s Priest, his role in the tale, and his relationship to the Canterbury Tales as a whole. One example, in my opinion, of an unsatisfactory reading is exemplified by Arthur Broes’s 1963 article “Chaucer’s Disgruntled Cleric: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” Broes argues that the Nun’s Priest is an “erudite clergyman” (Broes 162) who attacks his ecclesiastical superiors, most notably the Prioress, for their supposed spiritual failings. Although one can clearly find allusions to the Prioress (line 2835 would be a most poignant example, “No deyntee morsel passed thurgh hir throte”) in the tale, nevertheless I think that Broes’s reading is very much one-sided. Indeed, Derek Pearsall would seem to agree. Pearsall’s 1984 Variorum is an invaluable source of information on the sources and analogues of the tale, as well as a fairly thorough summary of critical approaches to the tale. Regarding the Nun’s Priest’s character, and the question of a so-called ‘dramatic’ reading of the text, Pearsall finds there to be two main critical camps: those who maintain that the Nun’s Priest’s character can be ascertained from textual evidence thus affecting any reading of the tale, whilst others, typified perhaps by Robert Kilburn Root hold the following position: “Neither in the General Prologue nor in the links which ...
The tale told by the Nun’s Priest is a fable or story with animals as the main characters and usually ends with a moral of some sort. This tale takes place on the farm of and old, poor widow. All that she posses can be summed up in a few lines. It is among her possessions that we find the rooster Chanticleer, who’s crowing is more precise than any clock and a voice that was jollier than any church organ.
T.S Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is well a respected drama composed of the life elements of faith, revenge, and the never-ending struggle for power. Two men, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, and King Henry II of England, display this ostentatious struggle for power. This dispute over ruling authority between the Church and the state is indicative of a main theme in Murder in the Cathedra, man versus god. Thomas Beckett serves as the representation of the power of God whereas King Henry II and his advisors serve as the governmental representations, or the power of man. The theme to Eliot's drama is greatly supported by the enhancements of imagery, light and dark as well as sensory, by the usage of metaphors, and by his syntax. Together the elements vividly represent the struggle between the two powers that is occurring within the play.
"story" of the Symposium may lead you to believe that it is a fiction, just
At the end of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock has been both a victim and a villain. He is a victim of his religion, and a victim of his greed and overwhelming need for revenge. Shylock is definitely the most villainous character in the play, and only a few elements can show him as a victim overall, even then, his victimisation only seems to be a consequence of his own actions. His daughter running away, because of her treatment, and apparent lack of love. The taking of his assets, because he would show no mercy towards Antonio. The final conclusion must be that Shylock is unreasonable, spiteful, heinous, greedy - and a villain.
Shylock is a wealthy Jew who invests money into shipments and trades. When Shylock’s enemy, Antonio, requests a loan of 3000 ducats, “Shylock adopts this Christian model of "kind" lending in his bond with Antonio as a means for lawful revenge.” Shylock’s agreement is that if the ducats are not returned, Antonio must repay his loan in human flesh. This is a way for Shylock to either make money or kill a Christian, either will satisfy him. Lee describes Shylock’s feelings towards Christians, “Indeed, although Shylock will neither "eat," "drink," nor "pray" with the Christians, he is willing to "buy" and "sell" with them.” This is where Shakespeare first introduces the devil inside Shylock. Had Antonio been a Jew, there would not have been a payment of flesh. Shylock’s hatred propels the story from start to finish. His hatred causes him to lose his daughter, drives Portia to use her money and wit to save Antonio, and why he ends up losing
computer games). In addition to a story itself, a narrative signifies the act of telling the
Narrative theory is extremely useful in teaching modernist fiction; its revival in the beginning of the twentieth century may be a direct response to the practices of modernist fiction. One of the most important components of narrative theory is what I call narrative dynamics, or the related issues of presentation of the story from the choice of beginning point, through the arrangement of linear and nonlinear sequences of events, to the function of the ending. Each aspect of the dynamics produces a distinctive teaching opportunity and (it is hoped) a different kind of knowledge. A focus on beginnings, narrative middles, and endings allows one to cover every narrative form, engage in productive dialogues with a host of earlier narrative theorists from Aristotle to Henry James (the latter always a great source of impressive epigrams), and draw on the students’ own experience and judgments. In addition, many trenchant observations can be culled from the narrative theory written by modern writers like James, Edith Wharton, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf.