Kate and Don Cipriano

Kate and Don Cipriano’s relationship in The Plumed Serpent is presented as the fullest expression of D. H. Lawrence’s ideal of a woman’s devotion to a man whose mission she comes to share. Kate initially resists dependence, but chooses to remain with Cipriano after making him recognize that he needs her; the book treats this exchange as a condition of her consent even as it frames their resulting partnership around his purpose and authority.

Initial Resistance and the Terms of Consent

Imbued with Western prejudices, Kate is attached at first to her personality and to what the account calls her limited existence. She does not immediately accept the dependence Cipriano represents. Before deciding to stay, she insists that he recognize his need for her. He does so, and the text grounds her decision in the belief that woman is necessary to man. Her consent therefore follows a demand for mutual recognition, rather than appearing as an unqualified submission from the outset.

Shared Mission and Unequal Self-Definition

Cipriano is described as a man who carries forward the banner of life and is wholly devoted to a mission. His authority is associated with a divinity that Lawrence’s ideal grants to the fully realized man. Kate gradually gives herself to Cipriano and adopts his goals, values, and universe, agreeing to be his companion. Their partnership is consequently shared in allegiance but unequal in self-definition: his mission supplies its direction, while Kate’s role is to join it and define herself in relation to him.

Erotic Renunciation and the Ideal of Harmony

The relation’s hierarchy extends into its account of erotic life. Lawrence’s ideal rejects a woman’s separate pursuit of sexual pleasure; Cipriano withdraws when Kate approaches an autonomous climax, and her desire subsides. The passage presents this not as the achievement of equal sexual freedom but as the surrender of that autonomy within the couple. It links her yielding to a broader image of quiet, potent life, setting her renunciation against the independent will she had initially guarded.

Literary and Thematic Significance

The book’s discussion identifies The Plumed Serpent as the clearest embodiment of Lawrence’s ideal and calls his novels guidebooks for women. It argues that men appear to submit to a cosmic order autonomously, whereas women are made to reach that order through male mediation. In this model, a man’s self-assured submission can resemble sovereignty, while a woman must bow to the male figure who embodies the order. Kate and Cipriano’s relationship thus serves as an example of the “real woman” ideal: a woman who assents to being defined as the Other. The initial demand that Cipriano acknowledge his need for Kate complicates the picture, but does not undo the final emphasis on her subordination.