Messianism and the Abject: Reading D. H. Lawrence’s The Plumed Serpent

The relationship between gender and mysticism places D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Plumed Serpent in a complicated relationship to modernity. This article points out that Lawrence’s vision of a national Mexican utopia, and ultimately of a cosmic one, is apparently premised upon a sexual revolution that should ultimately culminate in sexual intercourse as the archetypal union between ancient gods, deified men and women. However, Lawrence’s female abjection fails to achieve its messianic potential. Since the mystery of the new religion is directly related to the dark blood of male sexuality and female submission, the emergence of the modernist New is thwarted by D. H. Lawrence’s proto-fascist tendency and his preoccupation with femininity in its mystical and abject dimensions.