{"id":{"repo_id":"mississippi","oai_identifier":"oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2570"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mississippi/oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2570","repository":{"repo_id":"mississippi","name":"University of Mississippi","base_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Disturbing the Ecological Pastoral: An Examination of Willa Cather's Fictional Spaces in <em>My Ántonia</em> and <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>","abstract":"Willa Cather is universally lauded for her ability to render landscape into prose. Critics have observed for years that the landscape often functions as the main character in her fiction, or that her characters can easily be evaluated in terms of how deep and successful their relationships to the land are. In an attempt to evaluate Cather’s treatment of two different “Western” landscapes, I will focus first on <em>My Ántonia</em>, one of her most famous Nebraska novels, and second on <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>, whose narrative unravels on the New Mexican landscape. I argue that Cather treats these spaces differently. In <em>My Ántonia</em>, she maps a horizontal space and a land that is shallow, with little room to acknowledge the Native American history that existed in Nebraska before the characters in her novel arrived. In <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>, she writes a vertical space that allows a greater degree of visibility of all that is naturally inherent in the land. Throughout both novels, I track a phenomenon that I call the ecogothic, which serves to disturb and unsettle the pastoral and romantic expositions of the land that Cather is known for. These disturbances make us aware of a diverse and oftentimes troubling history in both spaces.","abstract_html":"Willa Cather is universally lauded for her ability to render landscape into prose. Critics have observed for years that the landscape often functions as the main character in her fiction, or that her characters can easily be evaluated in terms of how deep and successful their relationships to the land are. In an attempt to evaluate Cather’s treatment of two different “Western” landscapes, I will focus first on &lt;em&gt;My Ántonia&lt;/em&gt;, one of her most famous Nebraska novels, and second on &lt;em&gt;Death Comes for the Archbishop&lt;/em&gt;, whose narrative unravels on the New Mexican landscape. I argue that Cather treats these spaces differently. In &lt;em&gt;My Ántonia&lt;/em&gt;, she maps a horizontal space and a land that is shallow, with little room to acknowledge the Native American history that existed in Nebraska before the characters in her novel arrived. In &lt;em&gt;Death Comes for the Archbishop&lt;/em&gt;, she writes a vertical space that allows a greater degree of visibility of all that is naturally inherent in the land. Throughout both novels, I track a phenomenon that I call the ecogothic, which serves to disturb and unsettle the pastoral and romantic expositions of the land that Cather is known for. These disturbances make us aware of a diverse and oftentimes troubling history in both spaces.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Stowe, Anne Carter"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"M.A. in English","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Annette Trefzer","Jaime L. Harker","Kathryn McKee"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2019-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:07:00Z","subjects":["Death Comes for the Archbishop","Ecogothic","Ecopastoral","My Ántonia","Space","Willa Cather","English Language and Literature"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1571","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Annette Trefzer","Jaime L. 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Critics have observed for years that the landscape often functions as the main character in her fiction, or that her characters can easily be evaluated in terms of how deep and successful their relationships to the land are. In an attempt to evaluate Cather’s treatment of two different “Western” landscapes, I will focus first on <em>My Ántonia</em>, one of her most famous Nebraska novels, and second on <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>, whose narrative unravels on the New Mexican landscape. I argue that Cather treats these spaces differently. In <em>My Ántonia</em>, she maps a horizontal space and a land that is shallow, with little room to acknowledge the Native American history that existed in Nebraska before the characters in her novel arrived. In <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>, she writes a vertical space that allows a greater degree of visibility of all that is naturally inherent in the land. Throughout both novels, I track a phenomenon that I call the ecogothic, which serves to disturb and unsettle the pastoral and romantic expositions of the land that Cather is known for. These disturbances make us aware of a diverse and oftentimes troubling history in both spaces."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Disturbing the Ecological Pastoral: An Examination of Willa Cather's Fictional Spaces in <em>My Ántonia</em> and <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Annette Trefzer","Jaime L. Harker","Kathryn McKee"],"dc:creator":["Stowe, Anne Carter"],"dc:date.available":["2020-01-23T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Willa Cather is universally lauded for her ability to render landscape into prose. Critics have observed for years that the landscape often functions as the main character in her fiction, or that her characters can easily be evaluated in terms of how deep and successful their relationships to the land are. In an attempt to evaluate Cather’s treatment of two different “Western” landscapes, I will focus first on <em>My Ántonia</em>, one of her most famous Nebraska novels, and second on <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>, whose narrative unravels on the New Mexican landscape. I argue that Cather treats these spaces differently. In <em>My Ántonia</em>, she maps a horizontal space and a land that is shallow, with little room to acknowledge the Native American history that existed in Nebraska before the characters in her novel arrived. In <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>, she writes a vertical space that allows a greater degree of visibility of all that is naturally inherent in the land. Throughout both novels, I track a phenomenon that I call the ecogothic, which serves to disturb and unsettle the pastoral and romantic expositions of the land that Cather is known for. These disturbances make us aware of a diverse and oftentimes troubling history in both spaces."],"dc:identifier":["https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1571"],"dc:subject":["Death Comes for the Archbishop","Ecogothic","Ecopastoral","My Ántonia","Space","Willa Cather","English Language and Literature"],"dc:title":["Disturbing the Ecological Pastoral: An Examination of Willa Cather's Fictional Spaces in <em>My Ántonia</em> and <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em>"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.A. in English"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:07:00Z"}