ABSTRACT
Lawrence attended a bullfight in Mexico City on Easter Sunday, 1923. The bulk of the chapter is then given to a detailed analysis of the bullfight in The Plumed Serpent, drawing on important bullfighting criticism and biographical information about Lawrence to show precisely where Lawrence's needs and the bullfights strengths failed to meet. It concludes with a reading of None of That, which attempts to show how the later bullfighting story closes some of the ritual loops opened by the earlier novel. Postcolonial criticism knows that opening up the critical understanding of intercultural exchange has implications not only for the culture of the formerly colonized but also for that of the former colonizers. The chapter is organized around a ritual, the bullfight, which encapsulates the chaos of impressions that defined Mexico City for Lawrence and that pitch Kate into near hysteria.
