Psychoanalysis and Literature, Mary's Character in Lessing's novel 'The Grass is Singing' as a Case Study"

Abstract

The “Grass is Singing” is work that depicts many issues and communicates several themes. The issue of racism is mostly apparent that it deals with the subordination of the black people and their being exploited, abused and humiliated in their lands by British white people. As embodied through the character of the farmer, Dick Turner, the black servants are treated only as slaves and savages. More important in this novel is how the author deals with the psychic life of her characters. Particularly, the female character “Mary” who’s overlapping hurtful experiences and self-unconscious troubles causes her pain and sufferance in her relationship with the outer world. This paper will, therefore, approach the character of Mary from a psychoanalytic perspective and the variables that interrelate during Mary’s successive life stages to end up in her being murdered. That is, this paper is an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to literature. It will investigate how the accumulated experiences of socio-psychological past and present suffering led Mary to develop a psychological complex and act upon it. In other words, the study will analyze how the accumulated experiences of childhood, surfaced to the front and stressed upon by the occasional adulthood events, correlate to culminate in a tragic end in her life.