"The Plumed Serpent" is a novel by D.H. Lawrence.
The story is set in Mexico. It is about Kate Leslie, an Irish widow, who travels to Mexico after the death of her husband, in search of some kind of a quality renewal in her life. She attends a bullfight and is immediately revolted by what she considers a revolting degeneration of modern Mexico.
Kate meets General Don Cipriano Viedma, a pure-bred Indian with primitive sexual energy that she finds mysterious but certainly attractive. Cipriano is engaged in a revival of the old Aztec cult of the serpent-god Quetzalcoatl. Cipriano introduces her to Don Ramon Carrasco, scholar and political leader, whose mission is to dispose of Christianity and revive the old gods of Mexico.
Don Ramon presides of the ritual, representing Quetzalcoati, the plumed serpent. The cult is characterized by both actual and symbolic reawakening of primeval sexuality marked by the dominance of the male over the female and of the political leader over the masses. As Don Ramon rises to lead the people, Kate Leslie witnesses the violent blood sacrifices by Don Cipriano, at the same time she is fascinated by the elemental power of the cult. She becomes a fertility goddess, reborn as the fertility goddess Malintzi and bride of Cipriano, now elevated by Ramon to the status of war god, Huitzilopochti.
Possessed by the man-god, Kate accepts Cipriano's domination and acknowledges in becoming wholly subservient - both of her will and sexual self – thereby fulfilling the emotional and symbolic sacrifice demanded of the female in the cult, and in a way, Lawrence's own quasi-mystical scheme, as later in the author's life he toyed with views about the so-called "Nietzchean superman" and the phallic power. However, despite the extreme events in Kate's life, the expression of doubt in her self-actualization continues as the novel ends.