What was mary's father's job? the grass is singing
All at once she becomes completely aware of him after spying him during his shower after which, she cannot stop herself from watching his muscles flex as he works for Mary these observations are torture because a white person should never view their natives as human, never mind viewing them with attraction to their physique. It seems a kind of a justice when Mary begins to see Moses as a person with thoughts and a physical body. As she slowly realizes there is nothing she can do to him, she gives up, which leaves her vulnerable. In the above passage, Moses’ constant vigilance with his job frustrates Mary because it leaves her with no way to exercise her control and thus spew her hatred somewhere (other than on herself). That bed, uncrumpled, the coverlets turned back at the corners in a brave imitation of the inviting beds in modern catalogues. She began a quiet prowl through the house: everything, though shabby and faded, was clean and in its place. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that she could give him to do. She imagined him again standing silent at the door in the sun, looking at nothing, and she could have screamed or thrown a glass across the room to smash on the wall.
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Moses’ servile manner is a cover for his hatred and is a power maneuver, one that Mary has no defense for and finds herself spinning under his web as seen in this excerpt: At this point she becomes susceptible to Moses’ control, a control, which though comes through disguised as concern and obedience, is anything but. She displays almost no semblance of any human emotions including anger. It is not surprising when Mary becomes robotic and almost inhuman towards the end. It is not all Dick’s fault she is living in a hot hut, but Mary cannot see that.Īfter a few years passes and Mary realizes there is futility in her existence she stops fighting it and becomes numb from the anger and hatred of her life. Lessing uses this dialogue to emphasize Mary’s childish inability of accepting responsibility for her choices. It is Dick’s fault she’s living without ceilings.
![what was mary what was mary](https://jamesschaedigphotography.zenfolio.com/img/s/v-10/p1207638966-5.jpg)
She, like her mother, thinks everyone else is to blame for her perceived problems. No one is forcing Mary to stay in the “poky little place” and “live like a poor white” but she cannot accept the reality of her decision and that is evident in the above quote. It was taken direct from her mother, when she had had those scenes over money with her father. You expect me to cook myself every day because you won’t put in ceilings…” She was speaking in a new voice for her, a voice she had never used before in her life. “You expect such a lot! You expect me to live like a poor white in this poky little place of yours.
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She said, wanting to hurt him, really wanting to hurt him for the first time, because of this new arrogance of his, “You expect a lot from me, don’t you?” On the brink of disaster, she pulled herself up, but could not stop completely, and after a hesitation went on. The reality is Mary hates herself and isn’t able to accept responsibility for her disastrous decision so she blames Dick and tries to hurt him and gain control as seen in the below excerpt: Finding herself in the same place again, Mary becomes an embittered control freak and in needing to vent her frustrations, disappointments, and anger, she takes it out on her native workers. Once on the farm with Dick though, she becomes everything she hated and resented and had tried to escape from: her mother and that life of poverty. In shedding her family (literally) and moving to the city and acquiring a different life, she was able to pretend or imagine her previous existence away.
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Mary is a woman no different from anyone else living with a life of hatred and shame. I think Lessing illustrated Mary’s character so well as I was able to see all her complexities from her frailties to her bitterness. I had such difficulty stomaching this book with its rampant racist/apartheid attitudes, but surprisingly I didn’t have any difficulty understanding Mary’s point of view even if I found her snobby and nasty. There are many periods in history in which we would rather forget than face our (or at least mine) own culpability, none more than the time of colonialism and the early beginnings of apartheid. The Controlling Power of Hatred as Seen Through the Eyes of Mary Turner in The Grass is Singing By Doris Lessing