Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Sheila Contreras

Critical Essay by Sheila Contreras

SOURCE: Contreras. Sheila. “‘These Were Just Natives to Her’: Chilchui Indians and ‘The Woman Who Rode Away’.” D. H. Lawrence Review 25, nos. 1-3 (1993-1994): 91-103.

In the following essay, Contreras assesses the significance of indigenous culture within the broader tradition of modern primitivism in “The Woman Who Rode Away.”

D. H. Lawrence's travels to Mexico between 1923 and 1925 occurred during a period of intense U.S. and British interest in the social and political events of that country. “The Woman Who Rode Away” is a tale that combines many of Lawrence's observations of “a frightening country, the silent, fatal-seeming mountain slopes, the occasional distant, suspicious, elusive natives among the trees …” (“TWWRA” [“The Woman Who Rode Away”] 551). Biographers¹ and critics have chronicled Lawrence's Mexican journeys, noting his unabashed antagonism towards the country, its people, and its politics. With the exception of specific chapters on Lawrence in the book...
(read more)