Latour

4 Pages 944 Words

The Three Sides Of Latour
Death Comes For The Archbishop by Willa Cather is a book about the life and adventures of Jean Marie Latour. As the book progresses, Latour takes on many titles such as Father, Bishop and ultimately Archbishop. Along his travels Latour comes upon characters, many of which are quite similar. There are those characters that Cather deliberately writes more about to catch the readers attention. These characters are Father Martinez, Father Vaillant and Jacinto. In each of these characters Cather creates foils of Latour. There is something in his three foils that Latour wishes were a part of him.
“He had an altogether compelling personality, a disturbing, mysterious, magnetic power” (pg.150). This quote shows exactly what Latour admired in Martinez. This admiration is odd because Martinez is a man whose actions contrast with those that a man of the church is supposed to perform. Another side to this is that Latour sees some of Martinez’s qualities within himself and he hates that. In my life I have felt like Latour does in this situation. I find a person who is seen as having bad qualities and I see myself being that person. This makes me angry and I become more hostile to that person than I should be. This is the same with Latour and Martinez. Martinez’s selfish and un-priestly ways make his better qualities stand out even more. The quality that Latour admires most in Martinez is his fire and passion conveyed in his sermons. Martinez may not be a man who follows all the rules but he is a man of deep faith in what he preaches. This is that quality that Latour wishes that he had. He wishes he had the ability to show his faith as well as Martinez.
The next foil of Latour is his lifetime friend Father Joseph Vaillant. Father Joseph is the closest person in the book to Latour. He is faithful, intelligent and strong willed. The quality in Father Joseph that is most admired by Latour is that of determination. C...