The Grass is Singing

DORIS LESSING

Doris Lessing is widely regarded as one of the most important post-

war writers in English. Her novels, short stories and essays have
focused on a wide range of twentieth-century issues and concerns,
from the politics of race - which she confronted in her early novels set
in Africa - to the politics of gender, which led to her adoption by the
feminist movement, to the role of the family and the individual in
society, explored in her space fiction of the late 1970s and early
1980s.

Title
The title is taken from a long poem by T. S. Eliot called "The Waste
Land". These lines are at the beginning of the book and describe
India, but in generally South Africa is nearly the same. I think that the
grass is "singing" for rain that is needed very much on Dick's farm.
Water has a different meaning for the people of South Africa. They do
not take water for granted because there is not much of it. Water is the
basic of life; without it everything dies

Analysis and Findings

The Grass Is Singing (1950) is Doris Lessing’s attempt to make
‘political’ what is apparently ‘personal.’ By writing this novel,
Lessing has tried to raise a new consciousness in terms of
sufferings and problems that marriage and entrance to a family
unit may bring to the life of women. In this novel the female
protagonist, Mary, enters into the boundary of marriage,
loses her economic independence, suffers a bitter life in the
intolerably hot dwelling amidst the bush and among natives she hates,
and has to succumb to her husband’s constricting plans for their life.
Lessing’s story is the story of marital discord and its consequences for
a heroic female character whose ultimate freedom comes with her
bitter death by a native black servant.
In the boundaries of family and marriage,
Mary finds herself in circumstances that despite all her qualities she
is unable to control.
It is this lack of control that pushes Mary towards her fatal destiny.
In fact, Mary’s sufferings are the effects of the following causes: the
unbearable heat that deteriorates her both physically
and mentally; economic dependence on her husband that leaves
her no way to regain her autonomy; the disappointing indifference
and failures of her daydreaming husband; the discord and lack of
agreement in terms of their personal viewpoints and personal well-
being; and her problematic relationship with the native houseboys
who are in direct contact with her. First is the heat that under the
corrugated tin roof multiplies to degrees and makes Mary
numb and irritated, unable to live normally. Commenting on the heat
Tony Marston, the newly arrived assistant, says that it is “enough to
drive anyone mad, the heat in this place”
It is so hot outside that even birds are “quenched by the deepening
heat; at seven in the morning”
Nobody can endure such a heat whether a man or a woman.
To not feel the heat and while she has nothing to do Mary starts
sewing and embroidering, then washing and coloring the walls, then
reading and taking regular everyday bath. The money spending on
these activities comes from her savings before her marriage. But
because it is Dick who pays for the water, he intrudes and warns Mary
not to waste the precious water on taking bath: “it costs money to
fetch water. And then you go and throw it away”
While he has money to spend for his futile plans on the farm – none
leads to a profit and all are a waste of time and money – he is never
willing to pay for Mary’s needs as a human being. Ironically, severe
and unbearable heat is one of the causes of Mary’s bad temper
towards the houseboys. When sun shines Mary becomes too
sensitive and fault finding. When a curtain of clouds covers
the sky or rain pours on the farm, Mary becomes energetic and lively.
The second cause of Mary’s suffering is her absolute economic
dependence on her husband.
At the beginning of the novel and after informing us about the death
of Mary Turner and its following events, Lessing informs us about
Mary’s condition before her marriage. She introduces
Mary as a girl with “nothing to prevent her living by herself”
However, upon her marriage she has to quit her job and rely on
Dick’s income which is ironically so low compared to Mary’s
earnings in the office. While quitting the job has psychological
ruinous side effects for Mary, it costs her the loss of economic
autonomy and independence.
Suffering from the overwhelming heat and tired of arguments with
native black servants who irritate her, and disappointment by several
failures she witnesses in Dick’s farming, Mary dreams to
escape the veld and return to city. Her dream becomes a reality when
she finds that her earlier job in the office is unoccupied. But when
she leaves the house (with the help of Charlie
Slatter, their neighbor) and arrives at the town, she was disappointed
to find out that she has no chance to return to her job or live in the
Club again. Both her ex-boss and the woman in
charge of the Club reject her because Mary is now a married
woman. Having no money and no place to stay Mary has to follow
Dick who has come to take her to the farm again
Without money there is no chance for Mary to have a ceiling over her
head. Dick simply does not believe that his shack needs a ceiling. He
is always out on the veld, supervising and tackling with natives not
conscious of the heat that Mary suffers from under the corrugated tin
roof. He is not ready to spend on a suitable roof, or on the water that
Mary needs to cool herself and decrease the heat that is killing her.
While he wastes a lot of money on preparation
for his futile plans, he neglects his responsibility toward Mary’s
health and well-being.
Another factor that can be considered as a source for Mary’s
suffering is Dick’s indifference and his succeeding failures. Dick is
rather ignorant of the needs and wants of his wife. As
Rowbotham (1973) puts it, a family presupposes “an exchange of
services which resembles the bond between man and man in
feudalism. The woman essentially serves the man in exchange
for care and protection” , but such a reciprocal relation cannot be
seen between Mary and Dick. In several occasions Lessing depicts
Dick realising that he has had no right to marry a girl like Mary.
Although at the beginning he shows submissiveness towards Mary
and feels guilty for marrying her, gradually he finds himself in the
traditional dominating position and behaves according to the
unwritten rules of patriarchy.
To Dick’s indifference toward Mary is added his never ending dreams
and failures that occur one after another. Throughout the story, Dick
is always daydreaming about new plans that may make him a wealthy
person. None of these dreams and ridiculous attempts leads to
success. Before buying the farm he has been job hopping and we are
informed that he had not been successful in his earlier jobs. After
buying the farm and specifically after his marriage
we see him frequently venturing into costly and poorly planned
projects that reap no harvest.
Touring around the farm, Mary finds holes dug by Dick in search of
an Eldorado he has thought is in his farm. He has a good farm but
does not cultivate tobacco for some vague idealistic beliefs. He plans
to raise bees on an impulse and does not pay any attention to
Mary’s warnings that bees do not fit such hot climate. He tries to
raise pigs but again does not care for Mary’s advice that they will die
of extreme heat. He makes preparation to keep turkeys and invests a
lot on buying barbwires when at the last moment he changes his mind
to raise rabbits on an impulse. Even though he knows that rabbit meat
is not popular among the people in the country, he imagines that the
people may acquire the taste for it.

Even Dick’s decision to marry Mary is based on an impulse. He

becomes interested in Mary while he is sitting in the movies without
paying much attention to the film. Lessing informs us that he hates the
long-limbed women in the film. And suddenly when he is
looking at people’s faces, he comes across Mary’s silhouette under
the play of the movie’s lights shines and attracts his attention. He goes
to her after the film finishes and finds that he has no interest in such a
type of girl who does not know what a ‘harrow’ is. But later, just on
an impulse and under the pressure of loneliness, and his desire to have
children he returns to the town and looks for Mary who has nearly the
same physical characteristics as the women in the film that he detests.
Dick’s irresponsible and incompetent behaviour remain
throughout the story. He is the same man that acts on impulse and
never completes what he has embarked on.
In fact Dick is a complete failure; another Willy Loman2 who lives
in his dreams. He is a coward who never dares to go beyond his
ridiculous beliefs and ideas. He is the opposite of Mary whose reliable
instinct and exact calculations never seem to be wrong. Yet, because
the family is an organization based on patriarchy and under male
dominance, Mary has no other choice but to follow Dick and endure
her bitter life. Whenever Dick fails, a part of
Mary’s hope for a promising future is lost. She sees herself trapped in
a system that has patriarchy as its unchangeable principle and finds no
way out. Her escape out of the family and her trip to the town is
moving from a small family to a bigger one – society – which
follows the same rules and principles defined by patriarchy. She is a
woman – not an independent creature – whose place and position is
determined by her husband who looks at her as a commodity he
possesses.
At the heart of Mary’s problems with Dick is the fact that they are
totally different and not in harmony with each other. Mary is of a
sociable character and enjoys her life in the Club and her job in the
office. She has no need to have a man to protect her; in fact, she is
a supportive figure to her friends. Mary leads a carefree and easy-
going life and has no plan for her future. On the contrary, Dick is a
man who lives in dreams. Unlike Mary he is not sociable at all. He
never goes to the movies and hates the city. He loves veld and his
land and has no interest in books and sports. All that matters for this
claustrophobic character is farm and what is related to it. Unlike Mary
who proves herself as an efficient woman Dick proves himself as a
hopeless daydreamer.

The last factor that contributes to Mary’s physical and

psychological deterioration is her close proximity to native black
men that live in their house as houseboys. From the very beginning
Mary shows her hate and dislike for these people. But this dislike
does not solely
originate from racial biases. Having a look at Mary’s life as a celibate
we see that she has had no argument with the black servants who have
served her. In spite of racial biases, Mary’s problem with the natives
has two other reasons. Firstly, they are the only outlet that
Mary finds to vent her anger and dissatisfaction over the heat and
loneliness she endures; she cannot do so to Dick who is a superior
agent in the patriarchal hierarchy existing in the family. Secondly,
most of the natives embody some traits in common with Dick; they lie
to Mary and leave works unfinished. Mary’s anger and her arguments
with these houseboys are her manifestations of her bottled-up anger
and hatred that she harbors towards Dick.

Why Mary has to suffer and how marriage and family shapes a
new identity for her?

The white society in this novel is markedly a capitalist patriarchal

one in which economy and class are defining elements for
individuals. To these elements we have to add gender which is a
discriminating factor in power distribution inside families. Thus to
understand the society that Lessing depicts and the way that this
society determines the life of the people, we have to look at it from
two angles: capitalism and patriarchy.
As Wender Zak (1973) maintains, The Grass Is Singing “is one of
those rare works of fiction which acknowledges that basic truth of
Marxian analysis” that “Life is not determined by consciousness, but
consciousness by life” (484). Capitalism in the novel has Charlie
Slatter, Turner’s neighbor, as its representative. His wealth, large
house and magnanimous car come from his investments “into mining
shares” and not from the land that produces only “five bags an acre
lucky” . His attitudes indicate the bourgeoisie
trend including inclination and intention to exploit and dominate
others. He is a man who always looks for people who could do more
things for lower wages. He is the man that makes the ideology of his
society and imbues that ideology in the people’s mind. Such society
includes a closed circle in which one exploits and oppresses the
other. In such society the place of a married woman is defined
according to her husband’s status.

As Acker writes, an “unwaged housewife lives within class

processes but with different experiences in different activities than her
husband” . In fact, marriage becomes a trap for women like Mary who
lose their economic independence and are expected to provide un/low
paid work, produce children, take care of the aged and the sick, and
satisfy sexual needs of their husbands. A woman’s deviation from this
ideology would result in her demarcation
as a non-conformist, abnormal and deviatory. Such a person cannot
live an ordinary life because what is thought to be her fault in
conforming determines her experiences in life.
It is by the force of this ideology that the young unmarried Mary – an
independent soul is pushed toward marriage and being put in the
boundaries of family.
The false consciousness that Mary “is not like that” brings her the
belief that she differs from the image considered as normal and
ordinary. It is for her status as a single unmarried woman that she
finds herself a deviatory and the subject of her friend’s gossiping in
parties and celebrations.
Having heard such criticism, Mary starts doubting her own identity
as a normal member of the society. “She [cannot] recognize herself
in the picture they had made for her” , thus she tries to adjust herself
to the new definition that she encounters. In this new definition
singleness and celibacy for women are held as signs of
abnormality.
In this state in which Mary feels ‘hollow inside’ and ‘empty’ she
meets Dick Turner who suffers from claustrophobia and wants “to
smash the town up” whenever he has to come to the town for some
necessities. The overwhelming pressure that Mary feels on herself to
marry as soon as possible – in order to be, like other women in the
society, normal and sane – makes her an easy prey for Dick Turner.
For Dick a wife is a machine he can buy to
produce offspring and provide companionship. The following
unfortunate marriage disconnects
Mary from her job and the town that she knows and loves as a safe
refuge from her terrible childhood passed in the veld “surrounded by
miles and miles of nothingness”.
Her loss of economic independence makes her a subject of
domination and subjugation for Dick Turner.
The second determining factor existing in the society of the novel
is patriarchy.
As Ebert (1991) maintains, “Patriarchy works through a double
move that, on one hand, asserts and depends on binary oppositions of
gender differences but, on the other hand, naturalizes these necessary
differences as biological and thus the inevitable effect of ‘nature’
thereby making them ‘unnoticeable’ and not in need of change” (888).
But these bargains of patriarchy as Kandiyoti (1988) reminds us “are
not timeless or immutable entities, but are susceptible to historical
transformations that open up new areas of struggle and renegotiation
of the relations between genders” (275). The society that Lessing
depicts for us has the same characteristics and implements the same
patriarchal ideology. Mary’s father, Dick, Charlie Slatter, and even
the native men are decision makers and dominators of individuals
who take their superiority as natural and biological. It is Charlie who
decides about everything in his own house and in the society in which
he is a well-established decision maker. In Turner’s family Dick is
the patriarch who makes decisions and designs the plans. It is
Dick that decides what should be cultivated and raised. Although
his plans are all on an impulse and never come to a happy end.
That is why Mary has to follow all Dick’s miscalculations and suffer
from knowing the bitter reality behind them and witnessing the
upcoming failures.

When Mary escapes to the town and asks for a job that she has had
in the past, when she has not been married to Dick, her boss shows no
willingness to accept and hire her. He lies to her that the position is
already occupied and gives her no chance to start a new life again.
Mary also finds no place in the Club because the woman rejects her
on the basis that she is married and cannot live there at all. However,
this patriarchal conduct is not limited to the
white community. Even the natives have their patriarchal ideology
that they implement on women. While they, too, are dominating their
wives’ lives they are not willing to work for Mary who is also a
woman.
Lessing tells us that when Mary stands in charge of the farm, the
black workers are not willing to work under her supervision. There is
no place for women in white or black societies and that is a universal
phenomenon – gender segregation – in which as Wharton (1991)
quotes from Reskin “men resist allowing women and men to work
together as equals because doing so undermines differentiation and
hence male dominance”
Skill and knowledge is not supposed to be a characteristic of the
feminine picture that white and black men have in their mind. Lessing
proves the correctness of Acker (1988) in writing that “The linkage of
masculinity with skill can, in turn, be an ideological weapon in the
exclusion of women from male-dominated jobs”
Ironically it is the native houseboy who finally determines Mary’s
fate. Mary’s romantic relationship with Moses has the assumption that
Mary belongs to him and should remain available and in his
command. When Moses discovers that Turners are leaving the farm
he decides to take revenge on Mary whom he considers a betrayer and
deserves to die. In this regard Moses acts according to his own
tribal unwritten rule; he kills the betrayer and stands
to be punished heroically. Interestingly enough, Slatter and Dick
are also responsible for Mary’s death. Slatter is the one who
arranges the six months holiday for Turners – because he worries that
the romantic relationships between black and whites becomes
epidemic and also because he wants to take rule over Dicks’ farm –
and provokes Moses to action.
And Dick is the one whose decision to marry – made on an impulse
brings ruin to Mary’s life.

Conclusion
The findings in this study show that capitalism and patriarchy are the
defining factors of Mary’s life. But we should not consider Mary as a
female individual whose bad luck or weak points bring her to the fatal
marriage. Mary’s experience is the same experience of other women
in the story. Informing us about Slatter’s wife, Lessing writes that she
knows “what hardship and loneliness” Mary is tolerating. Though
thanks to her husband’s economic and
social position she lives in a large house, has three sons at university
and runs a ‘comfortable life’, she remembers “too well the sufferings
and humiliation of poverty” (75). She looks at Mary with “real
tenderness, remembering her own past, and [is] prepared to make
friends”
Mary’s mother is another victim to the patriarchal rule of a husband
who works in and for a capitalist society. Lack of economic autonomy
and being dependent on the money that is the ‘left over’ of her
alcoholic husband’s expenses on drink makes her so miserable that in
order to keep her children alive she has to steal from her drunkard
husband.
Therefore, the sufferings of Mary are the sufferings of her mother and
the suffering of Slatter’s wife. These hardships and sufferings go from
one generation to the other just as Mary repeats her mother’s
experience. Mary – the well-educated, carefree girl in the town
changes to a neurotic, mad-like miserable woman whose hate for the
life she is living makes her open an earnest arm to a bitter death. It is
her discontent with the status quo that pushes her towards her
murderer. Through her reliable instinct and powerful imagination
she knows too well the way that she is going to be killed and the time
and place of the murder.
She is sure that she will be stabbed on the verandah and not from her
back. She knows that she has come to her last day of life but does
nothing to rescue herself. That is why she says nothing about the
danger to Tony and wakes up at midnight – when Dick is lying
besides her – and goes to the place on the verandah where she knows
her killer is in ambush.

Lessing’s novel is a description and analysis of the life of a typical

New Woman. She traces Mary’s life from her childhood up to her
death and even after to show how, in Sheila Rowbotham’s words,
oppression and exploitation determines women’s “economic, legal,
social and sexual life” . It is Ironic that while Mary’s personality
corresponds to the concept of New Woman, as a presumably liberated
woman, her life shows not a sign of liberation and is highlighted, at
the end, by misery and disappointment. Rich (2009) defines the
stereotypical New Woman as an “assertive and outspoken” college-
educated woman, often seeking “a public role in occupations that
would putatively improve society,” believing
in “economic autonomy,” often wary of marriage, probably preferring
celibacy but believing in “companionate marriage, in which husband
and wife [regard] each other with equal respect
and shared responsibilities” . However with all the qualities and
merits that Mary does possess, she fails to deal with the patriarchal
oppressive society that pushes her toward a specific position in its
hierarchical structure. Mary is an example of this kind of new woman
whose equal status in life and her emancipation from oppression,
subjugation and domination cannot be guaranteed by merits and
qualities she has obtained. As Wender Zak observes,
Lessing give us “a contextual account of the narrow and
oppressive world in which Mary Turner was born, went slowly
and undramatically mad, and violently died”

Lessing depicts the way that a capitalist patriarchal society affects the
lives of women and shows us how women in general are defined by
their relation to men who oppress and exploit
them in one way or another no matter what qualities they have.
Lessing depicts the way that a capitalist patriarchal society affects the
lives of women and shows us how women in general are defined by
their relation to men who oppress and exploit
them in one way or another no matter what qualities they have.

The Grass is Singing is the loud cry of a woman who, as Sukenick

writes, yells “I’m not going to live according to your rules. I’m
not going to conform”