Female Subjectivity amongst Race, Class and Gender Barricades: A Study of Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing

Abstract

Doris Lessing was brought up in the atmosphere pervaded with racial conflict. She remained among the Blacks and closely scrutinized their way of life. She witnessed the subservience of Blacks under White masters and how little they were paid back in return which was not enough for their survival. They were treated like slaves and consequently Blacks did not have any freedom to assert their own will. The novel The Grass is Singing (1950) by Doris Lessing is a fascinating work of art, which exemplifies the complexity of Black and White correlation especially, suffering of white female under the colonial power in relation to modern community. They are trapped in the patriarchal system and the norms of racial subjugation to which they ought to adhere. The gruesome racial legacies traumatize the ‘subhuman’ (black natives as considered by Imperialists) of Africa and female (other) of colonial power. Roberta Rubenstein rightly observes that The Grass is Singing “concerns about social, economic and political structures, with being female in a conventional man’s world” (Rubenstein 17). Thus in the colonial era, rise of White Imperialism not only hindered the sustenance of black people of Africa but also ostracized the life of white women.