Doris Lessing

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Doris Lessing

• To Room Nineteen

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Summary

• Susan and Matthews marriage was a perfect
  marriage. (pp.2542-3)
• Susan becomes a dutiful wife and mother.
  (p.2544)
• Matthew begins to have affairs.
• (pp.2544-2545)
• The youngest children (twins) are off her hand.
  (p. 2546)
• Susan rents a hotel room for solitude. (p.2552)
• Susan cannot find a way to her real self except
  by killing herself. Her marriage is a failure.
  (p.2564)

3

• At the beginning, we can see the Rawlings
  marriage was perfect based on intelligence and
  mutual respect. Susan and Matthew Rawlings,
  having been stably married for twelve years,
  are regarded by their friends as a successful
  couple, having everything they had wanted and
  had planned for. So they are thought to have
  guarded their marriage in intelligence. And
  because of Matthews well-paid job, Susan and
  Matthew belong to the upper-middle-class family,
  raise four children, and live in a gardened
  house. For the sake of a normal family life,
  Susan quits her job to be mother at home. She
  becomes a responsible mother and wife so she does
  not have time to experience the sense of freedom.
  Until Susans youngest children go to school,
  she feels that she has a chance to live her own
  life. But, she also feels nothing worthy to do
  and never has a spare moment to herself. Her day
  is just taken up in waiting for the children to
  come home, consulting with the maid or worrying
  about dinner.

4

• Unfortunately, as she remains faithful to
  Matthew, Matthew begins to have affairs.
  However, she has to consciously repress herself
  because intelligence forbids the irrational
  feelings or behaviors for example, unfaithful,
  forgive, quarrellingetc. In fact, she is
  invaded by restlessness, emptiness. Then, she
  starts questioning everything for example, the
  value of her life, the support of love, and the
  role of wife and mother. She becomes anxious
  and distant, pulling away from her husband.
• Finally, for the sake of escaping her
  irrational feelings or behaviors, she decides
  to go away from her family to seek for solitude.
  She rents a hotel room every afternoon where she
  just sits and thinks. Later, Matthew finds her
  unusual behaviors and doubts she is having an
  affair. She knows that Matthews rational world
  will not recognize her irrational feelings or
  behaviors. So, she decides to tell him a lie
  that she is indeed having an affair. As family
  life and her husband fail her, she cannot find a
  way to her real self except by turning on the gas
  in the rented room 19 until she drifts off into
  the dark river.

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Question 1

• ?What is Susans inner transition in her
  marriage?
• Why cannot she live her own life?
• Inner-conflict
• to repress (p.2546) to break down (p.2548)
  
• to repress (p.2548) to depress (p.2551)
  to
• Mothers Room (p.2551) to Room 19 and then
• commit suicide (p.2564)

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• First, the fact Susan gives up her job is part of
  the intelligent plan according to the whole
  intelligent, well-arranged structure of their
  lives. Here, she starts to experience
  inner-conflict she has intellectually selected
  the role of a responsible mother and wife in
  family, but at the same time she longs to be a
  woman with her own career in society. She feels
  emptiness, but she doesnt tell Matthew or anyone
  about her feelings because she thinks it is not
  rational or sensible. Intelligence forbids every
  irrational feelings or behaviors. Later, as she
  knows Matthew has affairs, her role as a wife can
  easily be substituted by any other women. She
  feels resentment, she is out of control herself,
  but she has to repress her emotions again because
  she has to give understanding to her intelligent
  husband. Then, as she hires a girl to be a
  mistress of the house, her role as a mother is
  going to be played out. She keeps questioning
  the value of her role as a mother or wife, even a
  woman. Again, she feels restlessness.
  Therefore, she is depressed and isolates herself
  from others. Finally, her emotions cannot find
  an outlet, resulting in her suicide. In other
  words, her intelligence is gradually killing
  herself.

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Reference

• Cheung, Agnes Ying-fun. The Theme of Escape
  In Doris Lessings Fiction. MA Thesis. The
  Graduate Institute of English. Taipei Fu Jen
  University, 1987. 14-8.

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Question 2

• ? How does Lessing express her view of
• marriage through her narrative technique
• and the character of Susan?

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Answer

• Lessing expresses Susans helplessness (P. 2545)
  and emptiness (p. 2549) of her marriage life
  through Susans internal monologue.
• Although Susan knows her husband is not faithful
  to her, she forgives him. She denies her own
  feelings, feels helpless of her marriage life,
  and this leads to her actions at the end of the
  story. (See P.2545)
• Through Susan and Matthew dialogues, we know
  that they lack of communication in their married
  life. (pp. 2559, 2561)

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Question 3

• ? How do you comment on Susans human
• relationship in the story? How does it
• relate to the mid-life crisis?

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• Susan isolates herself from people after all her
  children go to school her soul can be
  emancipated only when she is alone. (cf. Woolfs
  A Room of Ones Own)
• Midlife crisis for women The feeling of empty
  nest makes women depressed and terrified.
  However, for Susan, nothing is important in her
  life, not even her children. In the end, Susan
  is tired of her madness and surrenders to death.
  The words intelligent and civilizedfor her
  are ironic, and her intelligence somehow leads
  her to commit suicide.