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Mary’s marriage to Dick turns to disaster for a number of reasons.
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While in her youth Mary lives a relatively free and independent existence, it is not considered appropriate for this state of freedom to last, and eventually she is coerced into getting married despite the fact that her impression of marriage is “poisoned” by her parents’ unhappy marriage, Mary’s father’s alcoholism, and his sexual abuse of Mary when she was a child. This event highlights the way in which femininity is policed in society.
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Before marrying Dick, Mary epitomizes a modern, cosmopolitan form of femininity she is independent, sociable, and pretty, and is described by the narrator as “one of the girls.” Indeed, in this stage of her life Mary is shown to be girlish and even rather infantile the narrator notes that “she still wore her hair little-girl fashion on her shoulders, and wore little-girl frocks in pastel colors.” Her childishness is also shown by the fact that she is resistant to marriage, a disposition that only changes when she overhears friends gossiping in a disapproving manner about the fact that she is not married. Lessing’s exploration of gender mostly centers around Mary, and the way in which (white) femininity becomes a source of conflict in the world of the novel. GradeSaver, 5 November 2019 Web.While most of the novel’s major themes relate to issues of race and class in the colonial environment, gender and sexuality also play an important role.
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Next Section Literature of Trapped Women Previous Section Irony Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Lin, Alexander.
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Lessing describes the dryness vividly with the image of some water dripping onto a brick with a hiss. Drought at the Turners' farmĭuring the earlier phase of Mary's life on the farm, it does not rain for several months, leading to both the failure of crops and acute discomfort even in the house. The fleetingness of her glimpse, Dick's attempt to brush away the observation, and the very ephemerality of the cut-outs make that insight all the more poignant, underscoring how unclear it is both to the characters and the reader what role children will or won't play in their lives. When Mary first arrives at Dick's farm, she notices cut-outs from advertisements and magazines of a woman and child, which she instinctively reads as symbols of Dick's lonely male desire for a wife and child. Since neither Dick nor Tony Marston is able to provide Mary with a sense of security and belonging, Mary is stricken with a kind of vertigo, leaping out into that which she fears-the wild environment and the danger of a vengeful Moses who awaits her there-rather than continuing to suffer the anxiety of being in an in-between space. Mary rushing into the veld at nightĮven after sending Moses away, Mary feels haunted by his presence. The rising of the sun seems to symbolize a new life for her-but when it does come up, it only illuminates the all-too-familiar environment of the veld and makes it clear that nothing will change for her. Buy Study Guide Mary looking out the window before and after sunriseĪs she is losing her sanity under the stress of feeling dominated by Moses, Mary wakes up one morning before sunrise and feels filled with a rare hope at the sight of the surrounding landscape transfigured in the light before dawn.