Hi everybody! I am sure you have had time to rest and study hard, even if you have a family to look after or a demanding job.
For the next days we are going to focus on a great writer: Doris Lessing. Her novel The Golden Notebook caused a great impression in my generation. This novel, which I strongly recommend, is also about societal and mental breakdown. I didn't choose it for the course because it is too long,but if you enjoyed The Grass is Singing, you will enjoy it as well.
Remember, successful reading results from the understanding you bring to a text, which is often based on previous knowledge. So try to read in order to understand the overall meaning of the text.
The process is double: bottom up and top down: Constructing meaning is not just understanding words and sentences in a text. It involves a connection between those words and sentences and the meanings which arise from your expectations and the knowledge you have about content and structure. So the best thing is to combine top down and bottom up processes and strategies. Discussing the topic, relating what happens in the book to what you know, to your own experiences and situations will help you to benefit from the reading.
Activities:
1. Provide a title for wach chapter
2. Summarize each chapter in three sentences.
3. Write a composition about what will happen next.
4. Write a composition about a different ending to the story.
5. Discuss what punishment to give to the criminal.
6. Discuss what advice would you have given Mary if you had had the opportunity.
7. Discuss each of the characters in the story.
8. Discuss significant bits of the story.
9. Discuss possible reasons for D.L. to write this book.
10. Give a reasoned opinion to another student who might read this book next year.
11. Write a book review.
12. Make a note of interesting expressions to learn and their meaning in English (quote page and paragraph). For example: Perhaps he had got cold feet and run away. (p. 14, par.3)
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ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF MARY TURNER
She was born in South Africa, in the apartheid age, and her parents were European for a humble background; they were always discussing, at the bottom about their own poverty.
Her father worked as a pumpman, he was an alcoholic who never look after their children and never earned enough to sustain his own family with dignity; her mother was a tenacious but bitter woman who fought everyday to make ends meet, and her life was marked by suffering.
Dust, move, railway, stations and stores were the main experiences in Mary’s childhood.
Her life changed when she was sent to boarding school, where she was extremely happy. At sixteen she left school and took a job in an office in town, and she was very happy again, because she seemed born for typing, shorthand, book-keeping, and the routine of an office.
In her twenties, she had a good job, her own friends and a niche in the town, and generally she was leading the comfortable carefree existence of a single woman in South Africa, and she did not know how fortunate she was.
For instance, she couldn’t appreciate that she, the daughter of a petty railway official and a woman whose life had been so unhappy because of economic pressure, was living in much the same way as the daughters of the wealthiest in South Africa. Until thirty nothing happened to break the smooth and pleasant life she led.
But one day, Mary felt that impalpable but steel-strong pressure of the society to get married, when she heard some of her friends talking in low voices about why didn’t she married yet, and saying also she will never marry because she just isn’t like that at all.
That little incident, apparently so unimportant, which would have no effect on a person who had the faintest idea of the kind of world she lived in, had a deep effect on Mary. Because suddenly she changed the way she was, and all the time she was looking for a husband Unconsciously and without admitting it to herself.
Then she met casually Dick Turner at the cinema, and approximately four months later they married. After marriage, Mary’s life changed completely, she started to live in Dick’s farm and all her happiness and vitality disappeared slowly.
ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARY, DICK & MOSES
Dick Turner was a good enough but childish and simpleton man. He used to start never culminated projects, as working tobacco plants, turkeys, pigs, bees and so forth. In other words, he is not at all determined and seems not to be able to finish things he begins successfully. Dick regards his dignity as his most valuable good. Apart from that, Dick seems to have two left hands. His relationship to Mary is strange enough. Although he is treated badly, he tries to make the best out of the situation and works hard for a better living. Dick is keen to make her happy, but doesn’t see the wide gap between them, and in fact he hardly ever understood his wife.
Regarding Mary and her married life, she hates the farm and also hates Dick in a certain way: she never considered him as a man and doesn’t have any emotions for him, and blames him for her hopeless and miserable situation. In fact, Mary wasn’t skilled at all to be a farmer’s wife, but specially the Dick Turner wife.
But since Dick has always dreamed of raising a real familyand doesn’t want to be alone, he is not giving up. Dick is not too self-assured and may be influenced by other persons easily. He instantly feels guilty whenever Mary complains about something. There is one thing he cannot understand at all: Mary’s inability to handle natives. She is not used to talking to native people and therefore doesn’t regard them as human beings. However, Dick himself doesn’t have any problems with native people and regards them as his comrades. Most likely because they help him doing his work, which he loves truely. Dick also starts behaving like a native.
One day Dick took a worker with him. His name was Moses and Mary instantly felt attracted to him but she knew she couldn’t show that because he was a native. Moses was tall, strong and charismatic. Mary enjoyed his presence but she also treated him badly sometimes. Gradually, the attraction between Mary and Moses put definitively up side down the marriage relationship between Dick and Mary, and finally triggered off the personal tragedy of Mary’s murder.
Very interesting comments, Vicent. Thank you.
Inma
The novel 'The Grass is Singing' is Doris Lessing´s 1st novel. The story takes place in Rhodesia, in southern Africa. By the time this novel was written, Rhodesia, as many other regions in that area was a Bristish colony, so it was under 'white power'.
For those who haven't read the book yet here you have a short review: this novel tells the story of a white woman, a town woman called Mary and her unhappy marriage to Dick Turner, who is a poor white farmer whose only worry is to drive his farm as better as possible. When Dick asked her to marry him she had no idea how hard life on his farm would be. There is where Mary loses control of herself and where we can see her ill-treatment of black farm workers and servants.
But, at this point, we find one of the most influential characters of the book. He is called Moses, a black native. Altough Mary hates all black Africans, with Moses she shows a different behaviour. At the end of the book something unbearable for the established rules of that colonialism period happens and it's exactly what unleashes a surprising ending.
Would you like to know what happens at the end? This is a task you must carry out because it will give you a better view of the world we are living in. I hope you find this novel interesting and I'm sure it will make you thing.
Happy reading!
Germán (L1 10h)
well, although I couldn,t read the book,I think it is about human feelings about racism and social problems at the south-west country.IN THIS WAY THE MAJORITY BLACK AFRICAN HAD BECOME BEING SLAVED BY MAINLY BRITISH GOVERMENT FROM 19th century till now. IN my opinion that colonial situation whose final tarjet is working as well to earn money as much as possible in a shorter and efficient way for political reasons. SLAVERY IS GETTING USED TODAY FOR REACHING CULTURAL INFLUENCES ALL OVER THE WORLD AT ALL. I MEAN UNDER FALSE PREMISES AND WRONG FINANCIAL FRONT,MANY POOR COUNTRIES, WHOSE IMPORTANT STOCKS LIKE GAS, FUEL-OIL,ETC.HAVE BEEN STOLEN IN AN UNTRUE HOPE. SUCCESSFULLY, A RECENT EVOLUTION IS CHANGING THIS BORING AND COMPLEX BEHAVIOUR. I,D RATHER TRY TO UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH POVERTY AND SLAVERY CONDITION HAVE BECOME TO SUFFER THAT UNHAPPY PEOPLE AND CIVILIZATION. ACCTUALLY NOT MANY SENSIBLE PEOPLE IS USED TO DISCUSSING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT.I FED UP THAT 21ST CENTURY HAS NOT GOT USED TO SOLVING THE SLAVERY CONDITION IN A MORAL AND RIGHT WAY.EVEN THOUGH, THERE ARE MUCH MORE PEOPLE TO FIGHT AGAIN THIS EPIDEMIC EGOIST BEHAVIOUR, <
THE GRASS IS SINGING
Review:
This book tells the story of Mary, a white woman and her unhappy life. But at the same time, draws a picture of Rhodesian society; she shows us how many white people treated black people during that period “Apartheid”.
Mary was born in Rhodesia, she’s daughter of poor European. She had an unhappy childhood, then she studies and she becomes an independent urban woman.
One day she realised her friends was gossiping about her; she began to look for a man to marry and she found one, Dick. He was a farmer, hard-working man who loves his lands and he was obsessed with earn a lot of money.
When Dick took her to his farm in “the veldt”, Mary stepped into a life completely different from anything she had ever imagined. She hated the little house, the natives, at times she hated Dick, but most of all she hated the burning heat and the loneliness. After one attempt to return to her life in the town, she stayed fighting against the realization that the security and happiness which she and Dick needed so desperately, but never come.
Little by little the years worked their slow poison. And Mary falls in love with her black houseboy. She treats him cruelly as she treats all black Africans.
Finally one heat-laden afternoon, without even realizing what she had done, she triggers an explosion of violence and tragedy. The story ends with Mary’s murder.
A DIFFERENT ENDING
After many years living on the farm together, Mary often goes through spells of depression, during which she is exhausted of energy and motivation. In her frailty, Mary ends up relying more and more on Moses. As Mary becomes weaker, she finds herself feeling endearment toward Moses. Locked in anguish, Mary and Moses are trapped in a web of mounting attraction and repulsion.
On a rare visit from their neighbour, Slatter, Mary is seen being too kind to Moses. This firstly amazes Slatter, but he doesn’t say a word. Afterwards, when he goes back home, he tells her wife about this inappropriate relationship for the colonists' standards. He explains that they should immediately put a stop to it. As he suggests buying Dick's farm and sending the Turners away, Mrs. Slatter accuses him of being old-fashioned and intolerant. They have a long argument, but Charlie doesn’t understand her wife’s reaction very much…
Most of the women in the surroundings have more than once felt attracted to a native. They think of them as tall, strong, sexy and well build men. They use to chat and share with other women their own problems and wishes. In these conversations, they have often talked about how much they enjoy their houseboys’ presence.
Mrs. Slatter is a woman with a lot of spirit and much more open-minded than his husband. She decides to meet her friends in the neighbourhood and tell them about poor Mary who seems to have fallen in love with the native. She convinces them in helping Mary to escape from her horrible husband who is unskilled good-for-nothing and takes more care of his land than of his own wife. They feel sorry about Mary for being in love with Moses, but at the same time they can perfectly understand her. They also see her strange and sometimes unreasonable behaviour towards Moses as the result of society pressure, which forced her to suppress her feelings.
Meanwhile, Mary is getting more depressed than ever. She has a very stressful state of mind at that moment, because all her thoughts are a constant contradiction. She can’t stop looking at Moses, she even imagines how he would be in bed, and immediately a horrible guilt overwhelms her, because of having those feelings towards a native, which she should despise and treat like an animal…
One afternoon Mr. Slatter decides to go to the Turners and tell Dick about his plan. Mrs. Slatter knows her husband’s intentions and wants to avoid them. When Charlie is arriving to the farm, he catches sight of a group of people standing around the house. They are all women! Mrs. Slatter is waiting at the front door, blocking the entrance while some women are in the house helping Mary with her packing. As Charlie hears what is going on, his face is full of anger, because he doesn’t like her wife to take decisions. But Mrs. Slatter is calm. She knows that in spite of his façade he has always been a henpecked husband and that he won’t dare to meddle.
Charlie goes down to the lands to Dick. He wants to warn him about what is going on. When they come to the house, Mary has already left with Moses and everybody has already gone.
Irene Alcolea Fuster L12, NA1
BOOK REVIEW.
In general I feel sorry for Mary, because in her twenties she was happy and was leading the comfortable carefree existence of a single woman. But the marriage changed her way of life, and the way she was, because when she started to live in Dick’s farm all her happiness and vitality disappeared slowly. I’m inclined to believe that Mary never should have left her job at town to get marry with a farmer. She was skilled to be a secretary, because she seemed born for typing, shorthand, book-keeping and suchlike, and so the way of life based on the routine of an office really fulfilled she. But I think she wasn’t skilled at all to be the farmer’s wife, specially the Dick Turner’s one. In fact, neither life in South Africa not life in a farm were made for her. Regarding Dick, he was a good enough but childish and simpleton man, who could be described as an unskilled good-for-nothing. He used to start never culminated projects, as working tobacco plants, turkeys, bees, pigs and so forth, always ended in economic disaster. Furthermore, in fact he hardly ever understood her wife.
One of the main points in the book is Mary's psychological evolution. Under the circumstances described above, at her forties Mary starts getting gradually sick, because of her unfulfilled life. I mean, when she definitively lost her hope to escape away from the farm, also lost slowly his will to live, and finally accepted her own madness and later even her close death. However, in her physiological evolution, it was very important the relationship with Moses, which seems be ambivalent apart from Mary’s general inability to handle natives. At first sight, she despises the fact that he is a native man, but on the other hand she feels attracted to his strength and sex-appeal. However, initially she tries to suppress her feelings, though later she admitted a strange kind of relationship with Moses. Needless to say, it wasn’t the typical relationship established in South Africa between master and servant, white and black, usually based on a despotic power. Moreover, certain features of Moses contributed to this situation, owning to he was a very different servant. Moses was somewhat better educated than other natives. For instance, she used to call Mary with the French word “Madame”, not “missus” like Samson or the rest boys did. Additionally, he seemed far more self-esteemed than other servants. In other words, Moses has the strong desire to be treated like a person, not like an animal or a stupid worker. So he did things even voluntarily to please his masters, but also expected them to treat him better afterwards.
In my personal opinion, the book is good enough written, but the argument in general makes you feel sad. Reading the book produces quite a lot anguish to readers, and so I prefer the kind of literature that helps you to grow as a creative person who thinks and dreams.
Vicente Claramonte Sanz, NAI L12
Set in a farm of Rhodesia, The grass is singing tells the story of a depressed white woman who moved from the city to an old and poor farm in the bush during the colonial period.
The story takes place in the 50s, in a moment when black and white people live totally separated and faced. The plot shows us the problems and contradictions of that way of thinking: Mary is the symbol of that contradictory ideology and her madness is a metaphor of the absurdity of racism.
The book explains an interesting idea about the injustice in those years, but the plot seems too simple. It has too much description and there’s a little action. The story of Mary’s marriage with Dick Turner unleashes a sequence of misfortunes and ends in the depression of Mary. The author focus her attention in that depression, and so many descriptions make you feel you are reading a depressive book in some way.
It’s a good story, but it needs more action and a better explanation of the end. You don’t catch it very well. Would you like to know how it ends? Then, read the book and enjoy it!
Arantza Valls (NA1, L10.00)
A different ending for 'The grass is singing'
'Mary, listen to me. You are ill. You must let me take you to the doctor.' Dick said. 'Of course I am ill', Mary said confidingly, 'I've always been ill, ever since I can remember. I am ill here.' Dick's voice sounded in her ears like the echo of a voice across a valley...
She sat down on the sofa and waited until Dick fell asleep. When she could listen Dick's snores, she took a little bag, which was under the sofa, and she got dress quickly with a mustard skirt and a black shirt. She looked around, remembering all her depress live with Dick until this moment. She thought it was a pity that their marriage had been so bad, but she was forced to marriage by society traditions and this was the result. She closed the door carefully. She didn't want to wake up Dick.
She walked inside the fields with a white envelope in her right hand. After fifteen minutes walking, she arrived to the natives' compound. There, everybody was sleeping. However, it wasn't difficult for Mary to find Moses. She had in her mind his muscular black body and his man smell. She woke up Moses. Without even looking his eyes, looking to the ground all the time, Mary gave him the white envelope and told him not to open it until next day morning. 'I order you to do it in that way. Did you understand?' said Mary fidgety. Moses try to stop her, but, incredibly, she run too fast as if her pity had converted into strength.
As she told him, the next morning Moses opened the envelope. Inside there was two letters. In a capital letters Mary had written: 'TO DICK' and 'TO MOSES'. He opened his own letter. While he was reading, his face changed. 'She is mad. She is ill. What happen with Mary's mind? I don't understand anything', Moses think.
Mary wrote that she needed to be free, so she decided to start a new live but she didn't know where. She wrote she was in love for him, but she felt it wasn't correct. 'It is a mad felling', she said. She also explained what kind of things she took inside the bag. 'It is impossible that she survive with this heat!' he shouted.
Moses went quickly to Dick's house, told him what happen and gave him his letter. Dick's letter was too sad. Dick cried without saying anything. Mary had written all her feelings since she arrived there. Now is too late to find her, even so Dick called Charlie and the police came at the same moment that Charlie arrived to Dick's house. They were looking for her during three weeks, but the result was nothing. Nobody knew anything. Nobody saw anything.
Nowadays, Old women in Africa tell to fiancées the tragic story about an unfulfilled woman who was trapped in a bad marriage. A woman who was insane as a result of her depressed live. A woman called Mary. At the end of the old women story, they always tell that the legend says there were people who saw Mary speaking alone and leaving inside the tropical forest.
Thais Bonilla Martínez NA1- 10:00
BOOK REVIEW
The Grass Is Singing is a novel by Doris Lessing that tells the story of Mary, an unhappy lower-class girl grown up in South Africa at the beginning of 20th century.
Born in a de-structured family, Mary tries hard to escape from her drunk father, her unhappy mother and their perennial poverty. She lives happy for some years at the city, keeping apart from men and sex, which she hates because they remind her of her father. But she can’t finally bear the pressure of society, a society that can’t afford a single and free woman who breaks the rules, the predefined pattern that ensures the dominating role of men.
In order to escape of this public judgement, she decides she has to marry. And she does, some months later, with a farmer who almost is a stranger for her. She moves to the farm, and then, slowly, she realizes she has come back to her childhood, she is re-playing her mother’s role again. But she is already late to escape, and thus a self-destruction process starts.
By means of Mary’s life, Doris Lessing creates a psychological, depressing novel, built upon three main thematic axis: the slavery in South Africa and the relationship between black and white people, the pressure that society puts on women so that they follow the predefined pattern, and a careful depict of a marriage failure.
The story jumps from descriptions of the dusty Rodhesian landscapes to psychological analysis of Mary’s destruction process. In this way, the writer intentionally creates an oppressing atmosphere.
Interesting novel but not suitable for everyone, mainly because of its complex language and its depressing development. Be sure you are strong enough to read it, otherwise you might easily end jumping through a window.
CÉSAR MARTÍNEZ IZQUIERDO, NA1 12:00
"The grass is singing" is the first novel of the novelist Doris Lessing who was the winner of the Nobel Prize For Literature in 2007.
This is a dramatic novel which tells the story of Mary. It starts with the Mary´s murder and then it tells us her story, her life.
About the characters I can tell that in this novel there isn´t a lot of characters. The main are Mary and Dick Turner and Moses. Then there are secondary characters like Charlie Slatter, Tony, etc...
About Mary´s character I can tell that at first she´s an independent girl who works and lives in the city and I think she´s happy, but, later, she gets married with Dick and she becomes in a unhappy and bitter woman. Finally she´s killed by Moses.
About Dick´s character I can tell he´s a very idealistic and hard-working man.
About Moses´ character I can tell he´s a black man, very poor and he´s used to serve white people but he has a strong character and sometimes he has a bad temper.
About the plot I can tell the novel is a dramatic story about Mary´s life and Mary´s death.
It´s well developed and easy to understand.
Mary had had an unhappy childhood because her father was alcoholic and her mother had a very unhappy life. Mary didn´t want to be like her mother, she didn´t want to have the same life as her mother.
First she was an independent girl who lives and works in the city but, by the people´s around pressure, she got married with Dick Turner and she went to live to his farm. They were very poor and Mary (who didn´t love Dick) was so unhappy and she missed her former life, when she lived in the city.
She was very racist and classist with black people and she was so cruel with them, bur she had to live with them.
Finally, Moses, a black man who worked for the Turners, killed Mary. She knew that Moses went to kill her and it looked that she didn´t care about it.
The style of the book is a dramatic novel very well written which it´s developed in the South Africa in the Apartheid time.
The novel is written in a very understandable language and I think it is very concret, and it likes me.
In my opinion, this novel should be read by everybody because in despite of being a dramatic story of a woman it enables to learn something else about the Apartheid Time in South Africa.
I´ve liked this novel so much and I recommend it to everybody who likes read because It´s so interesting and very entertaining, and you can´t stop to read till the end.
ISABEL SUÁREZ LUQUE NA1 10:00H
The book tells us the story of Mary, a woman who leaves her “perfect” single life in the city to have a failed married life in the bush. Also, the story is settled in Rhodesia, country where Doris Lessing was born, to denunce the effects of the “ white supremacy”.
The story begings with her murder, and from the present goes to the past to look over the events that could explain her tragic ending. All the facts that are told (her childhood, the gossip of her friends, the hunt and poverty that is around, her feelings about black people...) create a miserable character who is easy to despise and easier to understand why she is killed.
At the same time that the main story happens, the writer tells us about the unfair treatment that black workers suffer from white farmers, who have just arrived to their country. The hypocrisy atmosphere between colonist population is treated too. Tenseness is present in whatever relation.
The style that Doris Lessing uses is very descriptive and, like the events that make the story, helps to create a continuous stress feeling, with a constant hot sensation. I think she builds the Mary´s madness state little by little, with a lot of details, and that makes you to think you´re knowing a real sick person.
In my opinion it´s a good book, which has been written sucessfully, because the writer gets to transmit what she wants. While you´re reading it, you can feel claustrophobia, hatred towards the characters, even the wet hot of the country. On the other hand, it´s hard to read, because the subject isn´t nice at all and in any case you need a good level in English to be able to enjoying it. Anyway, if you want to check your improvement with the language, finishing it is a good challenge.
Nobody knew it, but the Slatters had two children: one boy and one girl. Both grew up watching his father abusing his mother and them. In fact he abused any and all of what he was about: his servants, the men who worked on the farm, their land, their animals...
Charlie soon forgot that he had a daughter, Margaret, and devoted all his efforts to raise his only son: James. James grew detesting natives and treating them with hardness and inflexibility, as his father had done all his life.
Margaret grew up and observed their behavior hating her family, her land and everything having to do with it.
When she was old enough, Margaret went on to study at her motherland: England. There she earned her degree in literature and became a writer. In her first book she recounted her experience in Africa and condemned the treatment of natives. She was ashamed of having been involved in these actions and therefore she decided to use a pseudonym to post. From this book, the world known her as Doris Lessing.
THE GRASS IS SINGING
Mary has a happy single life, she has a lot of friends, a nice job… but when she arrived at 30 years she discover that everybody criticize her single life. Because of this she decides to marry.
The man she marries is Dick Turner, a white farmer. Mary moves to the farm. Mary and Dick have a cold and distant relationship because Dick stays all day in the farm and Mary is alone.
Mary is a racist woman and thinks that whites should be masters over the native blacks. Although Dick is correct and pacific with their workers; Mary is very cruel, especially with black man.
All changes when Moses, a black servant, become in a boy house. The behaviour of Mary changes too. Every day she is closer to Moses and arrives to have a relationship. Moses has just dominating and killing Mary.
If a have to choose some characters I prefer to describe Mary, Moses and Samson. Mary is a fulfilled woman and egoist. She is a result of society. Moreover she is selfish and apathetic with her life. On the other hand we have a Moses; he tried to be the ideal servant. Ha wants to with Mary trust. Moses represents the black people; he wants to change the situation between black and white people. At last I want to describe Samson, he isn’t a main character, but he is the first Mary’s servant. He’s never works as a boy house. Mary is always companding about his work. Finally he dismissed himself.
The book has some significant bits of the story, for example Mary and Dicks wedding, this is the beginning of a change. The moment that Mary begins to exploit their employees. Moreover, the relationship between Moses and Mary is a necessary part for understand the book. Another important moment is when Tony finds out them in the room and his reaction. And finally the murderer that is the results of Mary behaviour.
About my point of view, Doris Lessing writes this book because she wants to be critical with the colonist situation and the apartheid. I think that, more or less, is a reflection of Doris Lessing life.
Carmen L1 10:00
ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARY, DICK & MOSES (Corrected version with tenses in the past and another changes)
Dick Turner was a good enough man, but childish and simpleton too. He started projects as working tobacco plants, turkeys, pigs, bees and so forth, but all of them failed completely. In other words, he was not at all determined, and seemed not to be able to finish successfully things he has begun before. Dick regarded his dignity as his most valuable good. Apart from that, Dick seemed to have two left hands. His relationship to Mary was strange enough. Although he was treated badly, he tried to make the best out of the situation and worked hard for a better living. Dick was keen to make her happy, but didn’t see the wide gap between them, and in fact he hardly ever understood his wife.
Regarding Mary and her married life, she hated the farm and also hated Dick in a certain way: she never considered him as a man and didn’t have any emotions for him, and blamed him for her hopeless and miserable situation. In fact, Mary wasn’t skilled at all to be a farmer’s wife, but specially the Dick Turner's wife.
But since Dick has always dreamed of raising a real family and didn’t want to be alone, he was not giving up. Dick was not too self-assured, and might be easily influenced by other persons. He instantly feelt guilty whenever Mary complained about something. There is one thing he couldn't understand at all: Mary’s inability to handle natives. She was not used to talking to native people and therefore didn’t regard them as human beings. However, Dick himself didn’t have any problems with native people and regarded them as his comrades. Most likely because they helped him doing his work, which he loved truely. Dick also started behaving like a native.
One day Dick took a worker with him. His name was Moses and Mary instantly felt attracted to him, but she knew she couldn’t show that because he was a native. Moses was tall, strong and charismatic. Mary enjoyed his presence, but she also treated him badly sometimes. Gradually, the attraction between Mary and Moses put definitively up side down the marriage relationship between Dick and Mary, and finally triggered off the personal tragedy of Mary’s murder.
BOOK REVIEW (II)
Putting my revisions skills into action, by teacher’s advice
In general I feel sorry for Mary, because in her twenties she was happy and was leading the comfortable carefree existence of a single woman. But the marriage changed her way of life, and the way she was, because when she started to live in Dick’s farm all her happiness and vitality disappeared slowly. I’m inclined to believe that Mary never should have left her job in town to get married with a farmer. She was skilled to be a secretary, because she seemed born for typing, shorthand, book-keeping and suchlike, and so the way of life based on the routine of an office really fulfilled her. But I think she wasn’t skilled at all to be the farmer’s wife, specially Dick Turner’s. In fact, neither life in South Africa not life in a farm were made for her. Regarding Dick, he was a good enough but childish and simpleton man, who could be described as an unskilled good-for-nothing. He used to start never culminated projects, as working tobacco plants, turkeys, bees, pigs and so forth, all of them ended in economic disaster. Furthermore, in fact he hardly ever understood his wife.
One of the main points in the book is Mary’s psychological evolution. Under the circumstances described above, at her forties Mary starts getting gradually sick, because of her unfulfilled life. I mean, when she definitively lost her hope to escape away from the farm, also lost slowly her will to live, and finally accepted her own madness and later even her close death. However, in her physiological evolution, it was very important the relationship with Moses, which seems to be ambivalent apart from Mary’s general inability to handle natives. At first sight, she despises the fact that he is a native man, but, on the other hand, she feels attracted to his strength and sex-appeal. However, initially she tries to suppress her feelings, though later she admitted a strange kind of relationship with Moses. Needless to say, it wasn’t the typical relationship established in South Africa between master and servant, white and black, usually based on despotic power. Moreover, certain features of Moses contributed to this situation, because he was a very different servant. Moses was somewhat better educated than other natives. For instance, she used to call Mary with the French word “Madame”, not “missus” like Samson or the other boys did. Additionally, he seemed far more self-esteemed than other servants. In other words, Moses has the strong desire to be treated like a person, not like an animal or a stupid worker. So he did things even voluntarily to please his masters, but also expected to be treated better afterwards.
In my personal opinion, the book is a good one, but the argument in general makes you feel sad. Reading the book produces quite lot anguish to readers, and so I prefer the kind of literature that helps you to grow as a creative person who thinks and dreams.
Vicente Claramonte Sanz, NA-I L-12
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