''Hard Punishments'', also sometimes referred to as Cather's Avignon story, is the final, unpublished, and since

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

novel by

Willa Cather Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including ''O Pioneers!'', '' The Song of the Lark'', and ''My Ántonia''. In 1923, ...

, almost entirely destroyed following her death in 1947. It is set in medieval

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...

Analysis

Perhaps her only book entirely contained in the

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...

, ''Hard Punishments'' was set in medieval

. While little is known about the plot, this final novel of hers is centered on its two main protagonists, who have both been injured: André has had his tongue cut out for blasphemy, and Pierre's hands have been maimed as a result of his theft by hanging him by his thumbs. Of the surviving fragments, sin and reconciliation are major themes, and specifically, the religious redemption and conversion of André to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

is a key component. For this reason, it is believed that the text was intended to be one of "cruelties" and "splendours". But even though violence and cruelty was apparently a significant part of the book, Cather withheld its description from the child protagonists and from the reader. A highly-ordered, biblically literalist state is the center of critique. Scholar John P. Anders understands Cather's preoccupation with fourteenth-century blasphemy as "appropriately allegorical and a fitting coda" to Cather's own sexual identity, which many understand to be lesbian. The story may have been inspired by a trip she took to Avignon in 1902, or a French trip she took in 1935. Either way, the novel was written between the 1940 completion of ''

Sapphira and the Slave Girl ''Sapphira and the Slave Girl'' is Willa Cather's last novel, published in 1940. It is the story of Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert, a bitter white woman, who becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, a beautiful young slave. The book balances an a ...

'' and the death of her brother, Roscoe Cather, in 1945. It is a continuation of her end-of-life focus on writing about landscapes outside of the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

Destruction and recovery

Following Cather's death in 1947, her lifelong partner

Edith Lewis Edith Lewis (December 22, 1882 – August 11, 1972) was a magazine editor at ''McClure's Magazine'', the managing editor of ''Every Week Magazine'', and an advertising copywriter at J. Walter Thompson. Lewis was Willa Cather's domestic partner ...

complied with her wish and destroyed almost all of the manuscript for the novel. This decision—to have Lewis destroy the manuscript, instead of Cather destroying it herself—suggests she intended to finish the novel before she died. While only one fragment was originally thought to have survived Lewis's burning, additional fragments were obtained from Cather's nephew's estate following his death in 2011. These additional fragments confirm that not only was Cather moved by French Catholicism, but that it had such a pronounced importance on her that ''Hard Punishments'' is substantially distinct from her other Catholic novels, '' Shadows on the Rock'' and ''

Death Comes for the Archbishop ''Death Comes for the Archbishop'' is a 1927 novel by American author Willa Cather. It concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico Territory. The novel's U.S. copyright expired on January 1, 20 ...

''.

References

{{Cather Unpublished novels Novels by Willa Cather