Willa Cathers Death Comes for the Archbishop :: Willa Cather Death Comes for the Archbishop

Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop: Novel and Narrative I found these definitions at an online guide to free online dictionaries: Main Entry: nar ·ra ·tive Pronunciation: 'nar-&-tiv Function: noun Date: 1566 1 : something that is narrated : STORY 2 : the art or practice of narration 3 : the representation in art of an event or story; also : an example of such a representation - narrative adjective - nar ·ra ·tive ·ly adverb Main Entry: novel Function: noun Etymology: Italian novella Date: 1639 1 : an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events 2 : the literary genre consisting of novels - nov ·el ·is ·tic /"nà ¤-v&-'lis-tik/ adjective - nov ·el ·is ·ti ·cal ·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb Main Entry: nov ·el Pronunciation: 'nà ¤-v&l Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, new, from Latin novellus, from diminutive of novus new -- more at NEW Date: 15th century 1 : new and not resembling something formerly known or used 2 : original or striking especially in conception or style <a novel scheme to collect money> I think that one of the hardest problems in distinguishing novel from narrative in DCA is, first of all, distinguishing between the terms "novel" and "narrative" themselves. A narrative seems to be, well, something that is told as a story, or at least being caught in the act of telling one of those stories. A novel seems to be, wait a minute, a narrative? What am I supposed to infer from that? Is this the sound of one hand clapping, Confucius laughing? Have I have been duped? As far as I can tell, all dictionary definitions and joking aside, Death Comes For the Archbishop is a solid mix of both prose and narrative, leaning a little heavier on the narrative side. Cather does explore her characters' humanity, following them and tugging the reader along from event to event, but we, the readers, only get the perspective of the fly on the wall at least, a shallow reading of the characters' feelings and emotions at best. We are never invited deep into the minds of her constructs as we are in most "novels." What Cather does do, though, is create an artistic rendering of the characters and the world that they live in. The reader can, with just a little imagination, see the heat shimmer off the desert, feel the sun beat down on them; they can create, from the general descriptions, characters of flesh and blood. The reader is given a series of snapshots, taken at different times, with nothing substantial to fill in the gapsthis separates it from the dictionary definition of the "novel" which follows, usually, a thicker chronology of the characters' lives.