RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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relations that Lawrence seems determined to
establish as to point the way to salvation
(p.213) .
In The Plumed Serpent this 'way to salvation' is enacted,
as Daleski implies, through the rebirth of the Quetzalcoatl God.
This novel seems to be a result of the frustrated personal
relation between the mentor of the new religion - Ramon Carrasco
- and his wife Dona Carlota. Ramon has been married to this
woman, who in several ways has much in common with the soulful
women of Lawrence's previous novels.
One may draw a parallel
between Carlota and Mrs Morel and also to the heroine of The
Plumed Serpent,
Kate Leslie, and see that their husbands' search
for a major fulfilment outside their homes is due to their
frustrated lives inside the homes they share with their wives.
In this chapter my main concern is to show that Lawrence,
up to a certain point, still takes the woman's point of view of
his early novels and somehow distorts it as a way to direct the
woman not to independence nor to a balanced relation with a man,
but to her sacrificial submission to the male power.
her soul apart from herself and submits in the flesh.
She leaves
This comes
after a battle between her old and new self.
Man also goes
through this same battle and his choice for a new self implies
the creation of a new religion which still divides body and soul,
despite the author's deep effort to achieve with the Quetzalcoatl
religion a union of these two halves.
1. The farewell to the old self
Ramon and Kate are two different characters with points in
common: both are departing from an old and tiring life in which