Grass is Singing

The Analysis of Mary’s Tragic Ending From the Feminism Approach Abstract Doris Lessing, one of the most important contemporary British writers, is also called a great female writer after Virginia Woolf. The Grass is Singing tells a story of a woman named Mary who can not find the right position under the double shackles’ oppression of both western colonization and male-domination. The thesis holds that all the characters in The Grass is Singing are tragic people. In order to reveal the causes of the charac ters’ tragic fortune more deeply and exactly, the thesis tries to analyze the female character’s tragic end with feminist approach. Key words:The Grass is Singing; Feminism; tragedy. Introduction The Grass is Singing is Lessing’s first novel written befo re she left Rhodesia. It is published in 1950 and was an instant success. It reflects the large living landscape of South Africa. The heroine Mary, who is born in a poor family, grows up in miserable childhood. Mother’s tears and f ather’s alcohol addiction bring Mary among their frequent quarrel over the monthly bill. The unhappy childhood bothers Mary’s later life a lot. She loses her ability to love people and to accept the love around her. She rushes into a marriage with a poor farmer when she once overh ears her good friends’ gossips about her unmarried life. Mary’s marriage with Dick is a cold-sexual and bad-economic one. Mary is disappointed with Dick because of his constant failure in plantation. The word “feminism” which appears initially in France at the end of the 19th century means “women’s liberation”. “Many would agree that at the very least a feminist is someone who holds that women suffer discrimination because of their sex, that they have specific needs which remain negated and unsatisfied, and that the satisfaction of these needs would require a radical change in the social, economic and political order.” (Del mar 56) The traditional male supremacy in the human culture has set women into the second status. For a long time, women don’t have th e voting right and they could not control their property or make their wills. They are the possession of their husbands. They must shape themselves into the person according to the society’s expectation. I n fact, women’s sacrificing themselves for their fa milies can not be ignored. Men’s success could not do without women. Since the 19th century, some pioneering women have struggled for their equal rights of education, working or voting. And it is safe to say that the influence of feminism is extraordinaril y huge and deep to women’s life. Literature Review Psychoanalytical critics are more concerned on Mary’s tormented psychology. Cederstrom applied Jungian theories to her Fine-Turning the Feminine Psyche: Jungian Patterns in the Novels of Doris Lessing an d took the Turner’s denial of their archetypal roots as internal causes of their sterility. According to In The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking the Forms of Conscousness Rubenstein tried to study all of Lessing’s protagonist and disclose the r eader a developing consciousness with a variety of approaches-archetypal, psychological, political, and biographical. She divided Lessing’s novels into three sections. The Grass is Singing was grouped as the phrase of the “Breaking Down, Breaking Out” with heroine, Mary, unable to break out of familiar worlds. Colonial and post-colonial readings are also popular. Wang’s criticism “White Postcolonial Guilt in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing” examined representations of historical tuilt, agency, and transformation in this novel and argued that the warped interacial relationship between the white female protagonist, Mary, and her black servant Moses, became the vehicle for a cathartic and redemptive alleviation of white postcolonial guilt. Fishburn’s “The Manichean Allegories of Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing” regarded the novel as a “Manichean allegory” that reinscribed the power and dominace of white colonial rulers by transforming the black into animals, beast, darkness and evil. Ruth Whittaker, in her Doris Lessing, also claimed that The Grass is Singing described an uncertain and ancious domination over the colonized region by the western colonizers. In Doris Lessing’s Africa, Thorpe asserted that the novel expressed the conflict between the white and the black people in the colonial social. She said that Lessing expected to explore the “colonial myth” of white superiority and separateness from the native peoples. In “Veldtanschauung: Doris Lessing’s Savage Africa” Bertelsen intended to depict the ambiguity of the British colonial domination and the power of “deeper blackness” represented by the colonized natural world and black people. Although there are indeed some clues which can be conneted with the racial issues, there is not a violent sense of antiracism in her novels. Lessing once responded to these reviews in Afican Stories “Color prejudice is not our origianl fault, but only one aspect of the atrophy in the imagination that prevents us from seeing ourselves in every creature that breathes u nder the sun.” From the Maxist perspective, Zak focused on the Marxist assumptions underlying the work, and about the way the protagonist Mary Turner became the victim of a male-sexist society in her paper “The Grass is Singing: A little Novle about the E motions”, Zak drew on the relevant works of R.D. Laing for a terminology to describe the mental condition into which Mary was forced. Morever, Sprague noticed Eliot’s influence n Lessing’s creating. In “Lessing’s The Grass is Singing, Retreat to Innnocenc e, the Golden Notebook and Eliot’s The Waste Land,”, Sprague believed that Eliot’s The Waste Land as the epigraphy of The Grass is Singing became “for Lessing a mirror of the dry, cast Rhodesian veldt. It is a physical and spiritual analog for the world that she depicted in her novel”. In China, the presence of this novel's Chinese criticism is also fruitful. Since Doris Lessing won Nobel Price for literature in 2007, Chinese critics have shown a much greater interest and enthusiasm in studying her works. Psychoanalytic standpoint was also often applied to analyzing this novel. Fu Li attempted to analyze the spiritual journey of Mary in “The Killing Spiritual Wasteland—A Brief Study on the Character's Depiction in Doris Lessing’s Maiden Work The Grass Is Singing''. Shen Jieyu, Cai Yuhui finished their paper “Into the Abyss of Consciousness Fallacies". Xia Qiong analyzed the distorted spirit of Mary according to the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious created by Carl G. Jung, and determined that the unconsciousness was the psychological incentive that led to the protagonist's madness and self-lost. From the postcolonial perspective, many critics studied this novel, such as Chen Jingxia, Wei Zhaohui etc. For example, Chen Jingxia created “Co lonial Consciousness in The Grass Is Singing: A Study of the Trope of Rape". Song Jinling wrote "Interpretation of Doris Lessing's The Grass Is Singing from the Postcolonial Perspective". In addition to these researches, Yang Xiaoli read this novel through the biographical method (2009). Xiang Lihua analyzed the modernity of the narrative strategy in The Grass Is Singing. To sum up, all the criticisms mentioned above are of academic values and of great help to the present study. However, few have touched upon the topic from the perspective of feminism. Readers can easily find that The Grass Is Singing depicts the women’s predicament represented by Mary. The women figure cannot find the right position in the African society which was dominated by male. It traced the tragic situation of contemporary educated women under the restriction of patriarchal society. The Analysis of Mary’s Tragic Ending From the Perspective of Feminism The Male-dominated Society Oppressing Mary According to feminism’s opinion, woman should be treated as an individual not “the Other”-a creature without desire and self in Simone de Beavoir’s words. But at the time of the story, it it still male-dominated society. The women actually are the other to men. Mary’s mother is the other compa red with her father, Mary is the other compared with Dick, Mary is also the other compared with the whole white society. Woman is the secondary gender compared with men in the world, and this idea has been kept for a long ti me. Women’s position in the male-dominated world is discussed in Beavoir’s book in detail: “This secondary standing is not imposed of necessity by natural feminine characteristics but rather by strong environmental forces of educational and social addition under the purposeful control of men.”(Beavoir 87) In the Grass is Singing, Mary is a typical woman who experiences the oppression from her father’s oppression. Even Charlie’s wife is Charlie’s oppressed object. All these can be the examples to illustrate Beavoir’s words. That is “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. The oppression of poverty caused by Mary’s Father Upon Her Mother From the novel, we can not infer what Mary’s parents are like before they get married respectively. But we can see their images after they are married. In The Grass is Singing, almost all the characters have their names, but Mary’s parents do not even have a name. This shows that in the author Lessing’s eyes, the two persons are to be ignored. Their existence is of no value. For family, they can not offer the care and love to their children. They even cannot protect their “love crystal”. Because of their improper nurturing, Mary’s brother and sister “both died of dysentery.” (Lessing 40). Mary’s mother is a sufferer in the world and nobody cares for her. They are almost cipher in the world. So their names will not be remembered even by their off-springs. As Virginia Woolf once said in her A Room of One’s Own, “If a woman wants to write a novel, she must have money and furthermore, she must own a room of her own.” (Woolf 79). Here, “money” and “house” are metaphor. The actual meaning is that if a woman wants to be an independent person rather than her man’s “other”, she must b e strong in her inside and economy. How does the condition of Mary’s life, her mother’s image plays a great role in her life. But her mother is a tragic woman which oppressed by the poverty caused by her father. Without independent economy, Mary’s mother cannot care her children and keep the house well. In their family, Mary’s mother needs her husband’s wage to feed so many mouths, but her husband earn too little. We can see that Mary’s mother is still a traditional woman. In her heart, “to love her husban d and to be happy in is a duty she owes to herself and to society.” If her husband can bear the family burden, she will like a traditional wife who takes care of their children and keeps the house and enjoys her husband’s affection. But her husband is not such a qualified man. He seems not to know he is a father of three children and a husband of a wife. Responsibility is a word completely out or his mind. His incapability makes her wife suffer a lot. In order to fight for a better life for her children, Ma ry’s mother has to argue with the barman. Also she has to struggle with her husband in the purpose of changing him a little. For example, “she enjoyed complaining in a hard sorrowful voice about her husband. Every night he comes home from here…every night!And I am expected to bring up three children on the money that is left over when he chooses to come home.”[Lessing 38] her verbal violence is to prevent her husband from drinking. She spends her hateful feelings in front of her friends in front of her friends to insult her husband with the purpose of her husban d’s awakening. Unfortunately, Mary mother’s struggle with her husband does not succeed. Her husband pays no attention to her and children, the result is that she hates her husband, two children died, and Mary is afraid of coming back to home. Even when Mary has grown up, she cannot live like a normal girl. The absence of fatherly love in childhood and mother’s misery brands Mary’s heart deep horror towards marriage which becomes a great obstacle in her friend-making and marriage. From the analysis above, we can see that the relationship between Mary’s parents is still male-dominated one, in which woman is passive. Though Mary’s father is incapab le, he is still dominating the whole family. He makes her wife suffer a lot and lead the whole family to crush. For Mary’s mother, even she tries her best to change her condition. She cannot change the position. She is a victim of the male-dominated family. In directly, as her mother’s daughter, Mary also becom es the victim of the male-dominated family. Dick’s A uthority and Negligence over Mary Mary and Dick are married for their own sake respectively. For Mary, marriage is a shelter to avoid gossips rather than a desire for love and man. If this Dick dose not appear, she maybe will happen to marry another Dick. it does not matter who it is. For Dick, he is the “first man she met who treated her as if she were wonderful and unique.” [Lessing 56]. In their marriage, Mary is the “other” to Dick. She does not get her own position. As Simon de Beavoir gives a more concise answer that women are simply men’s “other”, defined as whatever men are not: not rational, not strong, and not self. Dick is incapable, but in their family, he takes the authority and negligence over Mary. Firstly, Dick takes the authority over Mary. Such cases are all over the novel. We just name an example. In chapter six, Dick wants to “start a kaffir store”(Lessing 113). This decision is only made by him and he states it to Mary “in a matter-of-fact take-it-or-leave-it ch oice.”(Lessing 113). He does not feel guilt for his former wasting a lot of money on raising bees, pigs and turkeys. Or he does not think it is necessary to discuss the possibility with his wife. He turns a blind eye on Mary’s o pinion that it is no point in having another store because Slatter’s store is just five miles off. He applied for a trding license and filled the store to the roof with kaffir goods and bought twenty cheap bicycles. All of these are out of Mary’s hands. The only thing she could do is to “help Dick lay out th e goods, sick with depression.”(Lessing 114). He never talks with his wife what she needs and what she wants him to do for her. In Mary’s heart, “store” is a symbol which stands for “a terrible thing, an d omen and a warning, the ugly men acing store of her childhood.” (Lessing 113) but Dick does not know this great psychological problem of his wife. From the above description, we can see clearly that at the problem of who to run the store, Mary is passive. It is her husband Dick whole handles the voice. And his attitude is rude and resentful. Though Mary rebels furiously, she has to give in. she has to serve in the store, because she has no other choice. Secondly, Dick always neglects Mary’s basic needs. We can also find many examples to illustrate it. In the novel’s plots there is an object mentioned now and then, that is ceiling. Dick’s house has not ceiling. When summer is coming, “the sweat poured off Mary all day; she could feel it running down her ri bs and thighs under her dress, as if ants were crawling over her.” (Lessing 79). And when winter is coming, she has to reach up her hand to touch the icy-cold iron of the roof. Ceiling is an essential part of a house. We can say Mary’s request for a ceilin g is reasonable. While Dick does not figure out what a ceiling means to a person. Because he works on the farm all the day, he needs not bear the hotness in the summer and the coldness in the winter under the ceiling. But it does not mean he need not care his wife’s feelings. As a husband, he has the respons ibility to satisfy his wife’s basic needs. Dick prefers spending a lot of money on his bees, pigs, and turkey to putting on a ceiling which just needs a little money. We can see Mary’s disappointment and desperation towards Dick in the end: “the money spent on the store, the turkey-runs, the pigsties, the beehives, would have put ceiling into the house, would have taken the terror out of the thought of the approaching hot season.”(Lessing 114) From the a nalysis above, we can see, in Mary’s marriage with Dick, she is completely passive, and she is the other to her husband. She is the sufferer. Her husband’s authority and negligence drives her tragedy further. Mary’s taboo relationship with Moses Mary’s secret relationship with Moses is not allowed in the white society. In Mary’s short lifespan, she does not get her first man-her father’s love, and her second man-Dick’s love. It is Moses who makes Mary feel she is a woman. He offers Mary his manly care that Dick does not give her. Gradually, she falls in love with Moses. But we cannot forget that Mary firstly is a woman, also she is a white. Moses is her servant, besides, he is a black. In the white society, she has to behavior as the society order her to b e, that is, to be her husband’s possession. As a woman, she has not the right to choose to love with a black man. It is the forbidden zone that a white woman and a black have some thing together. Because of Mary’s affair with Moses, she loses her purity a nd immediately stands on the opposition of the whole white society. She has to face the judgment of the social morality. Mary is just a weak woman. She does not have the power to struggle with the whole society. The only thing she could do is to leave her at the mercy of it. No one can help her. Even Moses, the only one offers her tenderness, can not save her. On the process of her life, she seldom gets the active choice. As the title mentioned, The Grass is Singing, in South Africa, the wild grass is weeping for the dying away of a miserable woman-Mary. Conclusions Though Lessing does not like to accept the title of feminist, she is considered a typical feminism writer. And many of her novels deal with woman’s subjects. Moreover, just as some critics poi nt out, Lessing’s whole writing is her spiritual autobiography. In The Grass is Singing, we can clearly feel her experiences. In The Grass is Singing, women’s living predicament is an important subject to deal with. Mary is a representative of tens of thousands of women facing the same problem. She lives in the South Africa where she can not find the right position. When she is young, she does not receive family love because of her parents’ poverty and irresponsibility. After she grows up, she does not get the marital happiness. Her husband dominates their relationship. He pa ys no attention to Mary’s exist ence and gives her as poor a life as her parents give her. Her once happy working days become wonderful memory in her mind to recall. When she runs back to the city where she once stay in, she is refused coldly because she is married. She has lost the right to live independently. When she has Moses her servant in her house and grasps the slight strength to live on, she is caught by her own fellowmen and strongly condemned. She almost has not get air to breath. At last she died and nobody will remember their is once a Mary who comes to the world. She will be forgotten soon. In the novel, besides Mary, there are still other women such as Mary’s mother, Mary’s sister, Charlie’s wife and some black women. To our surprise, in the novel, Lessing does not give these women names. They are nameless! Mary’s mother is her husband’s possession and leads a miserable life because of poverty. Mary’s sister died of illness when she is very young. Charlie’s wife is treated cruelly by Charlie before the become rich. Black women are even worse, for they are the second class in the white and also the second gender in the man’s eyes. And all these women in the novel are victims i n the society as Mary to some extent. Daily hardships happening on her and other women. They are the weak in the man-dominated society. They live in hostile environment. Lessing takes the responsibility as a female writer to convey the fact of women’s pre dicament. She calls on us to pay more attention to such group, and further concerns for hum an being’s future. References Beavoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Bertelsen, E. Doris Lessing [J]. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 21(1):134-161, 1986. Cederstrom, L. Fine-Tuning the Feminine Psyche: Jungian Patterns in the Novels of Doris Lessing [M]. Bern: Peter Lang Pub Inc, 1990. Delmar, Rosalind. What is Feminism. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Fishburn, K. The manichean allegories of Doris Lessing's The Grass Is Singing [J]. Research in African Literatures 25(4): 1-15, 1994. Lessing, Doris. The Grass is Singing. Britain: Calys Ltd, 2000. 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