RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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is no beyond" and where only men can attain the perfect
communion.
After this black ceremony the story takes a doubtful
course in relation to Kate and also to Ramon.
Kate is again
uncertain whether she is happy or not with her marriage (only
by Quetzalcoatl) to the bloody Huitzilopochtli.
She begins again
questioning her new self in relation to her old one.
And after
she is named 'Malintzi' by Cipriano she is confused and brings
her old self to her mind.
She seems to be not very pleased with
her submission to her god-husband mainly because she still has a
mind of her own to oppose to Cipriano:
'You treat me as if I had no life of my own,'
she said. 'But I have.'
'A life of your own? Who gave it to you?
Where did you get it?'
'I don't know. But I have got it. And I must
live it. I can't be swallowed up.'
'Why, Malintzi?' he said, giving her a name.
'Why can't you?' (p.406).
The problem is that the vanity of becoming a God makes Cipriano
think that he is more than a man.
And Kate realizes this is a
result of the Quetzalcoatl religion, as she tells Cipriano:
'Go back to [Ramon]. You only care about him,
and your living Quetzalcoatl and your living
Huitzilopochtli. I am only a woman. '
'No, Malintzi, you are more. You are more
than Kate. You are Malintzi.'
'I am not! I am only Kate, and I am only a
woman. I mistrust all that other stuff' (p.406).
Kate's sudden rebellion against Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli
seems to be a result of her conflict with her two selves.
In
her new self she must accept submission and in her old she is
free, independent.
She is no goddess, no mystical wife of a
savage.
Her fierce opposition to Ramon and Cipriano may prove
that Lawrence's belief in his own story is as frail as a soap