Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
After the social, cultural and national crisis left in the wake of the first World War there was a loss of faith in Reason and in the traditional Christian God. The resulting literature was of disillusionment, doubt and loss. This essay discusses how D. H. Lawrence sought to cope with the darkness of a “godless” reality, critique a disillusioned society, and respond to the rise of feminism through the creation and development of a failed Christ figure and a defiant Mary Magdalene in his short story “Tickets, Please.” As he develops his Magdalene, Annie Stone Lawrence is able to use her to embody all his fears and anxieties in the feminist movement and gender tensions of his day as she is mostly responsible for the failure of his Christ-figure. Just as early twentieth century society waited in vain for a Messiah, Lawrence creates a world where Christ is overpowered by the damned souls He could have saved.
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Origin of Submission
as part of a class
Faculty Involvement
Jarica Watts
"For they were no gods"-- Lawrence's Defiant Magdalene
After the social, cultural and national crisis left in the wake of the first World War there was a loss of faith in Reason and in the traditional Christian God. The resulting literature was of disillusionment, doubt and loss. This essay discusses how D. H. Lawrence sought to cope with the darkness of a “godless” reality, critique a disillusioned society, and respond to the rise of feminism through the creation and development of a failed Christ figure and a defiant Mary Magdalene in his short story “Tickets, Please.” As he develops his Magdalene, Annie Stone Lawrence is able to use her to embody all his fears and anxieties in the feminist movement and gender tensions of his day as she is mostly responsible for the failure of his Christ-figure. Just as early twentieth century society waited in vain for a Messiah, Lawrence creates a world where Christ is overpowered by the damned souls He could have saved.