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Violent Immolations: Species Discourse, Sacrifice, and the Lure of Transcendence in D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow
- MFS Modern Fiction Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 57, Number 1, Spring 2011
- pp. 47-74
- 10.1353/mfs.2011.0035
- Article
- Additional Information
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This essay tracks the evolution of the Brangwen family in D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow from a Christian-humanist tradition sanctioned by a benevolent deity to a modernist culture, where new processes of individuation precipitate the breakup of communal values. In this transition, sacrificial activity undergoes dramatic transformations. From its source in direct contact with a God who rewards suffering with transcendent revelation for the first generation, it becomes secularized, sexualized, and increasingly violent. In the second and third generations, the animal-body that resists transfiguration is repeatedly subjected to symbolic disfiguration and death.