Preview

Post Colonial Perception on the Grass Is Singing

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4302 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Post Colonial Perception on the Grass Is Singing
A Post-Colonial Analysis of Doris Lessing’s

The Grass Is Singing

The Grass Is Singing, first published in 1950, was an international success. The story focuses on Mary Turner, the wife of a farmer, who is found murdered on the porch of her home. After her body is found, we are taken back to her younger days and slowly discover what happened to her. The background, location of this story is set in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in South Africa which has been drawn from Doris Lessing’s own childhood spent there. Her first hand knowledge of living on a farm in South Africa shines through in this book. The land, the characters, the farming are all vividly described. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Doris's mother adapted to the rough life in the settlement, energetically trying to reproduce what was, in her view, a civilized, Edwardian life among savages; but her father did not, and the thousand-odd acres of bush he had bought failed to yield the promised wealth. Similar sequences are presented in the book.
Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. She is a great female British writer and in October 2007, became the eleventh woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in its 106-year history, and its oldest recipient ever. Lessing has written many novels, short stories and tales, drama, poetry and comics of which novels like The Grass Is Singing, The Golden Notebook are the most popular and her works continue to be reprinted.
Lessing realized that she had quite an amazing life but didn’t know how to



References: * Fishburn, Katherine. “The Manichcan Allegories of Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing", Research in Literature, Vol.25, No.4 Winter I994. * Wang, Joy. "White postcolonial guilt in Doris Lessing 's The Grass is Singing." Research in African Literatures 40.3 (2009): 37+. Academic OneFile.Web. 15 Sep. 2012. * Fishburn, Katherine. "The Manichean Allegories of Doris Lessing 's The Grass Is Singing." Research in African Literatures 25.4 (1994): 1-15. * Postcolonial African Writers- A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook - Pushpa Naidu Parekh, Siga Fatima Jagne - Google Books * http://www.dorislessing.org/biography.html * Doris Lessing - Writer - -The Grass Is Singing- - Web of Stories - http://www.webofstories.com/play/53470?o=MS * The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing - http://www.dorislessing.org/the.html * The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing - Review - Life and death in South Africa - http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/printed-books/the-grass-is-singing-doris-lessing/1040306/ * Sexual-Political Colonialism and Failure of individuation in Doris Lessing‘s The Grass is Singing – By Sima Aghazadeh ------------------------ Shivani Joshi

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Robin Jenkins effectively conveys loss of innocence and ant war through sophisticated symbolism in the short story “Flowers”. It tells the story of a young girl, Margaret, who was evacuated from the city of Glasgow to the highlands of Scotland in an attempt to avoid the inhumanity of war, but it is in the highlands where she truly witnessed the brutality of war.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story Marigolds, written by Eugenia Collier, a black girl from a poor neighborhood called Lisabeth lived in a poor environment. One day she saw her father crying, which never happened before. In cause of her anger she went outside and vandalized some old women beautiful garden. By Lisabeth’s description, Ms. Lottie, whose garden was destroyed was over hundred years old and had brownish skin and Indian face. When Lisabeth committed the crime (when she vandalized Ms.Lottie’s garden) she felt like she killed a person. On the end when the author says, “This is the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence” (Collier 84). Now Lisabeth realized that she is starting to go from childhood to womanhood.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    African-American Studies

    • 1946 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Karenga, Malauna. Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press –Third Edition, 2002.…

    • 1946 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Maricela” a story from the novel Seedfolks by Paul Fleishman. Maricela’s outlook on life went from…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eudora Welty is one of our country’s great authors. Born in the south and raised to embrace her artistic side, Welty has bestowed many engrossing short stories upon the literary world. Welty’s southern upbringing allowed her to write masterful tales that focus on an individual’s contrasting romantic view of life verses the reality of living that has critics both praising and condemning her work.…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Analysis of I Am the Grass

    • 1714 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Cited: Walker, Daly. “I Am the Grass” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2011. 315-328. Print.…

    • 1714 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Racism has been a very prominent issue most commonly between black and white people. Although it is the most acknowledged; it is not the only example of race discrimination. Race discrimination occurs among other ethnicities and backgrounds of people. Sometimes race discrimination can transpire because of people’s point of views on certain things, such as religion, color, age, or even gender. In the stories, “The Wife of His Youth” and “Desiree’s Baby” racism and some other forms of discrimination are present, but surprisingly it isn’t one race opposing another. It is black on black racism, or more specifically “colorism;” this is discrimination based on skin color (Nittle 1).…

    • 2102 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    References: Clugston, R. W. (2010). Country Lovers, Nadine Gordimer. In Journey into literature (chapter 3)…

    • 2111 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author of “Marigolds” shows us that this quote is valid through her characterization of the…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    African American literature has a strong deeply rooted background in the history of America, thus giving the writers categorized in this genre a strong message to convey in any story they chose to tell. From tragic life moments to happy life moments, the writers have the ability to tell their story in a variety of methods. This canon of literature serves as a diary for the African American community. All of the literary works that compile this genre reflect the many twists and turns a collective group of persons must endure while struggling to achieve a place in history. The following discussion of three historically significant African American stories reflects the struggles one race of persons had to endure on their journey throughout various time periods in America.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story “Marigolds” by Eugenia W. Collier tells us of a fifteen year old girl coming into young adulthood during the great depression. It discusses the most memorable childhood memories of Elizabeth’s life in poverty, especially Miss Lottie’s beautiful marigolds. The life changes that this young girl passes through represents the end of childhood innocence into a recognition of reality in the cruel world in which she finds herself. This leads her into a new world of compassion. It is through this act that Elizabeth steps into an adult personality out of a childish mentality. The process in which she enters adulthood is represented by symbolism, vivid imagery, and details provide by Collier.…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Maya Angelou

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Maya Angelou has dedicated her life to end prejudices faced by many black females in the 20th century. As an author, poet, and entertainer, she is known best for her strong portrayal of African-American women. Some of her most outstanding work is the series of autobiographies that she wrote telling about her childhood. Her work has contributed immensely to Americans everywhere.…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    The book Sula by Toni Morrison is regarded as one of Morrison’s best work because of the content and structure of the book. Shadrack is an important character in the novel although his appearance in the plot is fairly brief. His significance in the novel stems from the fact that he represents one of the recurring themes of the novel, which is the need for order. Since the need to order and focus experience is an important theme, the character Shadrack illustrates the terror of chaos through his self-proclaimed day “National Suicide Day” in his small town, which portrays the importance of fear, chaos, and death in the book Sula by Toni Morrison.…

    • 1558 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    The “music of my song/some sweet arpeggio of tears” tells of the internal struggle of being a black woman. Also what it means to be a black woman. Evans’ portrays the despair felt from her…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Americanah, staged more or less in the present, displays this in a much more relatable sense, with Ifemelu constantly fighting against misrepresentations and annihilations of her people. In the hair salon, for instance, Ifemelu meets a white woman named Kelsey who is reading books about Africa to prepare for a trip she is soon to take. Ironically, Kelsey had read Things Fall Apart and found it “quaint… like it didn’t help [her] understand modern Africa” while she commends A Bend in the River for making her “truly understand how modern Africa works” and being “the most honest book [she’d] read about Africa”—even though Ifemelu, someone actually from Africa, “did not think the novel was about Africa at all” (233). She gives Kelsey a “mini-lecture”…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays