In Mexico: D.H.Lawrence

Between 1923 and 1925 Lawrence made three trips to Mexico and his long term desire for a kind of commune in which he, his wife Frieda and his closest friends could live in a creative way, free of the obsessions of Western culture. What became his ‘savage pilgrimage’ in Mexico became his own tortured exile from the industrial revolution, institutions and all that embraced the liberal aspirations of 19th century England.

He wanted to live in a place where he could survive on his instincts, to be part of nature and where reason should be considered dangerous.

Mabel Dodge Luhan, a mining heiress from Kansas, had similar ideas and had moved to New Mexico. She married a native American and built a house to which she invited artists, writers and painters. After various invitations she succeeded in getting Lawrence and his wife to not only go to New Mexico but also purchase a ranch on her property. She received the manuscript of ‘Sons and Lovers’ in return.

Lawrence had always been a writer who used place throughout his novels and perhaps it was that which drew the reader in. His introduction into Mexican culture and their ancient rites appeared in the novel, ‘The Plumed Serpent'(Quetzalcoatl) but it was his desire to write about the Mexicans in the brief eighty pages of ‘Mornings in Mexico’ that highlighted his incomparable ability as a Poet to write prose.

His feelings for things, his empathy with people and his miraculous eye are all in “Mornings in Mexico, 1927”.