Flourishing Creativity & Literacy - Hybridity in Willa Cather's - Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock - Postcolonial analysis of cultural hybridity

Oct 15, 2026

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Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock are read through the missionary lives of Europeans in Quebec and New Mexico to examine colonizer–colonized dynamics. The study argues that the colonizers’ stereotypical intentions to civilize shift through intercultural interaction, blurring boundaries. Missionaries treat natives sympathetically, sometimes equally, contrary to prevailing colonial assumptions. Using Homi Bhabha’s hybridity theory, the essay analyzes cultural relations and transformations in both novels.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

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Introduction

Discussion

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 6 No. 1; February 2015 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Flourishing Creativity & Literacy Hybridity in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock Maryam Heydari Fard (Corresponding author) English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, IRAN [E-mail: m.heydari1989@gmail.com](E-mail: m.heydari1989@gmail.com) Hossein Pirnajmuddin English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, IRAN [E-mail: pirnajmuddin@fgn.ui.ac.ir](E-mail: pirnajmuddin@fgn.ui.ac.ir) Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n. 1p.81 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.1p.81](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.1p.81) Received: 19/09/2014 Accepted: 22/ 11/2014 Abstract Willa Cather wrote Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock based on the missionary life of Europeans in Quebec and New Mexico. In both novels she depicts a different type of colonizer-colonized relationship. The colonizers arrive with their stereotypical views about the natives to purportedly civilize them. But later, through their interaction with the natives, their superior, patronizing attitude gradually changes, so that, the boundary between the colonizer and the colonized becomes blurred. Contrary to their presuppositions about natives and also the longestablished colonial attitude, the missionaries in these two novels treat the natives sympathetically and in some cases equally. Using Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridity, this essay attempts to analyze these two novels in terms of the depiction of cultural relation/interaction. Keywords: Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Shadows on the Rock, Colonialism, Cultural Hybridity 1. Introduction Willa Cather ’s two late sequential novels, Death comes for the Archbishop ( 1927) and Shadows on the Rock ( 1931), are historical fictions. Cather focuses on the lives of two groups of missionaries in New Mexico and Quebec in these novels. She tries hard and reads widely to achieve some kind of historical accuracy and authenticity in them. After reading The Life of the Right Reverend Joseph P. Machebeuf, by William Joseph Hewlett, Cather becomes inspired by the thoughts, feelings and experiences of pioneer priests and missionaries in New Mexico. Some of the main characters are based on real historical personages figuring either under their real names or fictional ones. She brings historical characters sometimes with changing their names into her fictional characters; for instance, in Death Comes for the Archbishop, Father Jean Marie Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant were changed out of actual names of Father Lamy and Father Machebeuf. Even in some cases, without changing the real historical characters names, she uses them in her novels such as Father Martinez in Death Comes for the Archbishop and Bishop Lavel and Count de Frontenac in Shadows on the Rock (Danker, 2000, p 37) . Based on these two novels' solid historical background, most of the written reviews and researches on them focus mainly on their historical authenticity. Danker (2000) in her notable article which focused on historical baseness of novels argues that what Cather collected out of "historical accounts, church records, newspaper files and family stories about the French Canadians" reveal the historical bases ofthe novels (p. 37) . But this essay attempts to shed light to these novels from a different perspective; a postcolonial one, the aspect that remained in the shadow of historical power of these novels. This study's aim is to address the way Cather envisions and registers cultural hybridity. In these novels, Cather experimented with a new kind of form, a new genre that made most of the reviewers to begin their reviews by this sentence, "This book is hard to classify"(Cather, 1949, p. 12) . Guy Reynolds notes that a number of earlier scholars grappled

FAQs

How does the essay describe the colonizer–colonized relationship in the two Cather novels?

The colonizers initially arrive with stereotypical views to “civilize” the natives, but their attitude changes through interaction. The boundary between colonizer and colonized becomes increasingly blurred.

What role does Homi Bhabha’s hybridity theory play in the analysis?

The essay applies hybridity theory to analyze cultural interaction and the transformation of characters. It focuses on how the missionaries’ understanding develops over time.

Why do the authors emphasize the novels’ historical background in their interpretation?

Prior research mainly highlights historical authenticity, and the essay positions its approach as a different perspective. It studies postcolonial aspects that remain obscured by historical-power discussions.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk