Doris Lessing: A Review of Four Key Short Stories from the ...

福岡大学人文論叢第 40 巻第 4号

Doris Lessing: A Review of Four KeyShort Stories from the 1960s

Suzuko Mamoto＊

Introduction

Relationships between men and women remain one of the most

important themes of the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing.

While feminist concerns are widely explored in masterpieces such as The

Grass is Singing (1950) and The Golden Notebook (1962), her short stories

should not be ignored. In the short stories set in the 1950s and 1960s,

readers can observe how Lessing’s heroines seek freedom during the age of

sexual revolution. Lessing believes that sexual freedom does not necessari-

ly lead to the direct liberation of women. If women seek psychological

independence, it is more important for them to establish their own identity

than to have sexual freedom.

In this paper, in order to explore Lessing's somewhat ambivalent views

of sexual freedom in terms of the progress of feminism, I will focus on

women’s identity from the short stories written in the early 1960s. First,

I will introduce Lessing’s general view of the age of sexual revolution. This

will be followed by an examination of the differences between men and

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＊ Foreign Language Instructor, Fukuoka University

women from the viewpoint of their attitudes towards sex and sexuality (“A

Woman on a Roof”, “One off the Short List”). Finally, I will look at the

“sensible” female characters who overcome the temptation of liberated sex,

and keep “more important things” in their lives (“Our Friend Judith”, “A

Man and Two Women”). These four short stories appeared together in the

volume A Man and Two Women in 1963.１

New Sexual Phenomena

In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault states that sexual

practices and sexuality had been put into the closet in the Victorian period:

But twilight soon fell upon this bright day, followed by the

monotonous nights of the Victorian bourgeoisie. Sexuality was

carefully confined; it moved into the home. The conjugal family

took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious function of

reproduction. On the subject of sex, silence became the rule.２

Sexuality has surely come back into the open since the Victorian period.

The 1960s is generally said to be one of the most dramatic decades in

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１ A Man and Two Women (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1963). (hereafter MTW)“One off the Short List” and “Our Friend Judith” were first published in PartisanReview, 27, Summer 1960. Both appeared again in the collected short stories, AMan and Two Women in 1963 with “A Woman on a Roof”, “A Man and TwoWomen” and other short stories. In 1994, most of them appeared again inFlamingo’s To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One and Two (London:Flamingo, 1994). For convenience, I will cite the page numbers of “Our FriendJudith” from 1963’s A Man and Two Women and the rest from 1994’s To RoomNineteen: Collected Stories Volume One (hereafter TRN).

２ Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: 1 The Will to Knowledge (London:Penguin, 1990) 3.

Doris Lessing（Mamoto）

modern history in terms of patterns of liberated sexual mores, sexual

assertiveness and sexual orientation.

The year 1960 saw the case against D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s

Lover collapse. In the same year, the Beatles left Liverpool for Hamburg;

their love songs became popular later. In his poem “Annus Mirabilis”

(1967), Philip Larkin ironically describes the period thus:

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me)

Between the end of the Chatterley ban

And the Beatles’ first LP.３

Introduced in 1962 in Britain, the contraceptive pill enabled women to

behave promiscuously without the risk of unwanted pregnancy. The

liberated sexual patterns of the 1960s are often termed the “Sexual

Revolution”.

In the Preface to To Room Nineteen, Doris Lessing describes the 1960s

decade as a “comedy of sexual manners and mores” (TRN, ix). Moreover,

she says:

No one knew how to behave; there were no rules at all. . . most of

the sexual dance was to do with power games, one-upmanship,

domination, and nothing to do with attraction let alone love, sweet

love. (TRN, x)

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３ Philip Larkin captures the new age of sexual freedom with irony. “AnnusMirabilis” in Philip Larkin, Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite (London:Marvell Press, 1988) 167.

The characters that inhabit Lessing’s short stories of the late 1950s and

1960s can be seen as reflecting the relationships between men and women in

society during this period. However, we have to note that according to

Lessing, the unfettered “sexual dance” and “power games” had already

started in the late 1950s. From her own personal experience, Lessing

clearly states that “sex did not begin in the sixties”.４ In fact, some of the

short stories discussed in this paper were published in 1960, indicating that

the “sexual dance” had already started by the late 1950s. Moreover, Lesley

A. Hall also points out in her academic survey of sexuality:

By the late 1950s the rise in illegitimate pregnancies and in

venereal infections among young people indicated an increase in

young women engaging in sexual experimentation, not necessarily

with men they intended to marry, even before the advent of the Pill

in the early 1960s and the 1978 Abortion Act.５

Lessing believes that the introduction of the pill accelerated the steps of

the “sexual dance”. In the second volume of her autobiography, she writes

about this as follows:

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４ Doris Lessing,Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949-1962(London: Flamingo, 1998) 338.

Somewhere towards the end of the sixties, I found that I was laughing,unexpectedly, helplessly: first, a disbelieving and incredulous yelp, and then areal laugh, ha ha, oh my God, but it’s so funny . . . What was? Sex, that’s what.This laugh is out of its proper place only chronologically, because it was notmerely the sixties I was looking at but the fifties too: as I have already hinted,sex did not begin in the sixties.

５ Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Women in Twentieth-Century Britain (London:Longman, 2001) 59.


What distinguished the fifties, and then the sixties, was that there

were no rules. Surely this must have been the first time in history

― in any history that we remember ― that there were no com-

monly accepted conventions and at the same time there was access

to birth control. Anything went. And there were to be no rules

until the advent of AIDS, which restored morality at a stroke.６

In addition to this, in Women’s Quests Lessing looks back nostalgically on

the 1950s thus:

I think my generation was probably the first generation to have

sexual freedom as a right, as something that we were due. . . .

Furthermore, we were not worried about getting pregnant because

what are now regarded as fairly primitive birth control methods

worked. None of us ever had all these sexual diseases people have

now.７

Even in the age of pre-pill contraception, people’s trust in the “primitive

birth control methods” and the low levels of anxiety about sexually

transmitted diseases enabled people “to have sexual freedom”. At first

glance, such a sexually liberated society seems to be a sign of progress in

terms of women’s liberation. However, it did not simply make women

happier. According to Lessing, there were confusions in both men and

women:

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６ Lessing, Walking in the Shade 338.７ Doris Lessing, “Women’s Quests.” Partisan Review (May 1992) 196.

No one knew how to behave, neither men nor women. And this is

why there was so much unhappiness, so much incomprehension.

Do I exaggerate? Yes, I do, because I am leaving out of this

account the enjoyable and happy encounters.８

Lessing’s response towards the confusion caused by this new sexual

phenomenon was to explore it through her fiction. Lessing’s short stories,

especially from the 1960s, are comedies based on the author’s own observa-

tions and experiences.

“A Woman on a Roof” (1963)

According to the second volume of Lessing’s autobiography, “A

Woman on a Roof” was born from Lessing’s own experience of living in

Langham Street, London from 1958 to 1962. One day when Lessing and

some others were sunbathing on the roof, some male construction workers

waved at them and shouted admiring comments and invitations.９ Likewise,

in this story, a bikini-clad woman is sunbathing on a roof and the

construction workers are trying to catch her attention. Although the men

whistle and shout at the almost naked woman, they are not able to get her

attention.

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８ Lessing, Walking in the Shade 338.９ Ibid., 227:

The roof was reached by a tricky little ladder. I sunbathed up there, using theshadow from chimneys to temper the heat. The short story “A Woman on aRoof” comes from that time. It was another world, because I was not the onlyone to use the roofs; there were plants and little gardens and deck chairs. Overnear the BBC, building was going on, and the great yellow machines clamberedand swung halfway up the sky, and the men operating the machines waved at us,shouting invitations and compliments.


In terms of their attitude towards this woman, it is interesting to

observe the similarities and differences between the two construction

workers in this story, Stanley and Tom. Being rejected by the woman on

the roof, Stanley, who is newly married, shows his contempt by saying,

“Christ . . . if my wife lay about like that, for everyone to see, I’d soon stop

her” (TRN, 241). He calls her a “Bitch” (TRN, 241). On the other hand,

Tom, who is seventeen and single, falls in love with her. He indulges

himself in a fantasy of being her protector against Stanley’s verbal assault

and dreams of being her lover. Although they have antithetical reactions,

aggressive and sweet, I think it is important to see that these men’s

attitudes to the nameless woman are the same in that they both desire to

possess and control her. Moreover, their desire to control her is targeted at

the woman’s sexuality. Even though the woman does not care about the

males’ gaze, her exposed body is seen as a form of liberated sexuality. The

woman’s freedom of being almost naked and at the same time being safe

from a rapist can be viewed as an element of women’s empowerment in the

men versus women power game. So far, the woman has won this game

because her cold indifference makes the male helpless and frustrated.

Lessing successfully manages to convey two key points in this short

story: first, the plot in which one woman’s nearly naked body expresses her

sexual liberation; next, the comical elements with which the frustration of

the men is developed. In this short story, the men are unable to ignore the

attractive woman. As they can neither control the woman’s sexual freedom

nor enjoy their own sexual freedom with her, they become frustrated.

Towards these excited men, the woman responds with a refutation of total

silence: “She ignored them, no matter what they did” (TRN, 241). Thus, she

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is determined to ignore them, as she believes any response she makes will

allow these men to treat her as a sexual object.

The character Mrs. Pritchett is the antithesis of the sunbathing

woman. She is an airline pilot’s blonde wife. She serves these construction

workers tea and flirts with Stanley. Compared with the woman on the

roof, Stanley is successful with Mrs. Pritchett because Mrs. Pritchett, who

“[has] an eye for the handsome sharp-faced Stanley” (TRN, 245), recipro-

cates his admiration. On the other hand, Tom feels “envious of Stanley’s

ease in badinage”, and at the same time hopes “Stanley’s getting off with

Mrs Pritchett [will leave] his romance with the woman on the roof safe and

intact” (TRN, 245). Even in relation to Mrs. Pritchett, sex is the only

interest that both Stanley and Tom have.

In the last scene, after having had a long daydream and fantasy, Tom

finally invades the woman’s roof. At the unexpected appearance of Tom,

the woman says, “Go away” (TRN, 247). Seeing Tom not moving, the

woman angrily says, “If you get a kick out of seeing women in bikinis, why

don’t you take a sixpenny bus ride to the Lido?” (TRN, 247). This brings

Tom back to cold reality, far from his sweet fantasy world.

Through this comical story, we can also see serious aspects. The men

seem to be more confused by the progress of women’s sexual liberation. In

this short story, Stanley is aggressive and Tom is innocent when con-

fronted by the women’s liberated sexuality. Although their attitudes are

different, their inability to ignore the naked woman and thus their

inability to separate a woman’s sexuality and her personality are the same.

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“One off the Short List” (1960)

In “One off the Short List”, the difference is even more explicit in terms

of the treatment of sexual practice. In this short story, the man and

woman value the meaning of sex completely differently.

Graham Spence had wanted to be a writer: “He at last published a

decently successful book, then a second which now, thank God, no one

remembered. He had drifted into radio, television, book reviewing” (TRN,

213). And so, instead of becoming an artist himself, he has become a critic

of contemporary art. He is “an impresario of other people’s talent” (TRN,

214), in Lessing’s term, and a married man. Barbara Coles is a successful

stage decorator and designer. Since his second meeting with Barbara,

Graham Spence has taken a special interest in her. The party scene shown

below describes a key moment:

He [Graham] hung around a bit, but soon she [Barbara] went off

with a group of people she was inviting to her home for a drink.

She did not invite Graham. There was about her an assurance, a

carelessness, that he recognized as the signature of success. It was

then, watching her laugh as she went off with her friends, that he

used the formula: ‘Yes, that one.’ (TRN, 213)

The power game played in this story is not only between a man and a

woman, but also between a critic and an artist. As cited above, Graham

decides to treat Barbara as his lover when he faces Barbara’s “assurance”

and “carelessness”. By treating talented female artists as if they were his

lovers, he fulfils his pride, gets pleasure from other people’s envying him

and, moreover, he enjoys “the atmosphere he [is] able to set up between an

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intelligent woman and himself: a humorous complicity which [has] in it

much that [is] unspoken, and which almost [makes] sex irrelevant” (TRN,

215). He interprets Barbara’s behaviour and attitude as “the signature of

success” of a genuine artist. In fact, Barbara’s leadership in inviting people

over to her house, but not inviting Graham is evidence of her social

superiority to Graham. As Lessing’s description of a critic as “an

impresario of other people’s talent” implies, in this story the critic seems to

have feelings of inferiority and jealousy towards the artist. Lessing’s

tactfulness in meshing gender politics with racial hierarchy in her 1950s’

novels set in southern Africa is also deployed in this short story. Here, the

social hierarchy is more subtle and partly imagined by Graham. In this

light, this male critic’s obsession with forming a relationship with Barbara

can be interpreted not only as compensation for his ‘lowly’ status as a

critic, but also as his attempt to feel superior to this female artist by

treating her as a woman and not as an artist. Barbara, as a successful

artist, gets many interviews from newspapers and TV and most of them

stress the success of her career and her being a woman, on the premise that

a woman being talented and tough is an unusual thing and thus should be

emphasised:

These all [interviews in newspapers and on television] centred

around the theme of her being able to deal easily with so many

different styles of theatre; but the real point was, of course, that

she was a woman, which naturally added piquancy to the thing.

(TRN, 216-17)

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Barbara asks Graham to “get away from the personal stuff” (TRN, 225) and

to describe her as an artist.

His jealousy of her is exacerbated when he sees her working with her

colleagues at the theatre:

Suddenly Graham couldn’t stand it. He understood he was shaken

to his depths. . . . He was seeing what a long way he had come from

the crude, uncompromising, admirable young egomaniac he had

been when he was twenty. That group of people there― working,

joking, arguing, yes, that’s what he hadn’t known for years.

What bound them was the democracy of respect for each other’s

work, a confidence in themselves and in each other. (TRN, 217)

Graham seems to be extremely jealous of Barbara’s relationship with her

colleagues. In Graham’s eyes, Barbara and her colleagues seem to relate to

one another with mutual trust and respect. There are no sexual politics

between them and instead they are united with each other as completely

independent individuals. Then the narrator describes Graham’s reaction:

“It was then with the tears drying on his eyelids . . . that he decided he

would sleep with Barbara Coles. It was a necessity for him” (TRN, 218).

Graham’s obsession of sleeping with Barbara can be also interpreted as his

desire to regain a pure passion for his work and mutually respectful

relations with other people. It is Graham’s twisted fantasy that he can be

an artist himself, too, by physically connecting with this successful artist.

However, Graham’s expectation will not be satisfied. In Barbara’s

room, Graham’s sexual encounter with her gives him neither a sense of

conquest nor superiority. He becomes sexually impotent:

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While she had been lying there, she had been thinking: The only

way to get this over with is to make him big again, otherwise I’ve

got to put up with him all night. . . . She had switched on, with the

determination to get it over with, a sensual good humour, a

patience. . . . Like a bored, skilled wife, she was; or like a prosti-

tute. She administered to him, she was setting herself to please

him. Yes, he thought, she’s sensual, or she could be. Meanwhile

she was succeeding in defeating the reluctance of his flesh, which

was the tender token of a possible desire for her, by using a cold

skill that was the result of her contempt for him. Just as he

decided: Right, it’s enough, now I shall have her properly, she

made him come. It was not a trick, to hurry or cheat him, what

defeated him was her transparent thought: Yes, that’s what he’s

worth. (TRN, 234-35)

Graham tries to compensate for his inferiority complex by possessing her

sexually, but it turns out that, even sexually, Graham is possessed and

controlled by Barbara’s hand.

Barbara lets Graham start having sex with her because he is so

obsessed with doing so. For Barbara, who is tired and needs to sleep

peacefully, it seems to be the easiest way to calm Graham down and rid

herself of him. In the morning, Graham finds himself sleeping alone in the

bed. Barbara has slept in another room. This fact clearly shows that

Barbara values their intimacy less than her own sound sleep. In short,

Barbara uses sex as a means of preserving her autonomy.

Doris Lessing reflects, “already in the fifties there was the beginning

of the feeling that sex was on an agenda, something that ought to be done,

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and blame would accrue if it was not performed”.10 She had had a similar

experience to Barbara’s with an admirer who pursed her for months. He

was passionately in love with her:

It was because of pity for his state that I eventually gave in,

expecting to assuage a painful passion. The actual sexual contact

lasted perhaps three minutes, and then he fell asleep. His snores

were such as I had never heard before nor have since. I removed

myself to another bed and slept peacefully till morning.11

However, on another occasion, Lessing did not sleep with her admirer:

Remembering my previous experience [with another man], I kept

saying no, and then at last I thought, as women may do, Oh, for

God’s sake, what am I making such a fuss about, if it means so

much to him? I took off all my clothes ― and then I put them on

again, for by now I was thinking, Why the hell should I, when I

don’t want to? This was a terrible thing to do. Cruel. As my

mother might have said, though in a somewhat different context,

There are things a decent woman doesn’t do.12

In this 1960 short story, the morning, following their encounter,

Graham insists on accompanying Barbara to work. He wants to show his

success with her to her colleagues. However, when Barbara arrives at her

workplace with Graham, nobody seems to care what happened between

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10 Ibid., 339.11 Ibid., 343.12 Ibid., 344.

them the night before. As there are no sexual politics between Barbara and

her colleagues but only the pure passion of their job, they do not pay much

attention to her private life. Soon Barbara and her colleagues return to

their business, and so enthusiastic they are that Graham is completely

ignored and forgotten. By contrast, as soon as Graham parts from

Barbara, he starts thinking about what excuse to give to his wife.

The most interesting aspect of this short story is the way in which

Graham’s ambition is left unfulfilled. He believes that having sex will

enable him to disturb the successful talented woman, giving him a sense of

superiority. In short, he thinks sex can be an effective weapon in the power

game, providing him with a means of compensation and enabling him to

get revenge. However, all his expectations are unsatisfied. As I stated

above, the man and woman value the meaning of sex completely differently.

While sex is an emotional instrument used to defeat and possess a woman

for this middle-aged man, it does not mean anything for Barbara or her

young colleagues. For Barbara, in the night with Graham, sex can be

utilised as a defensive strategy to retain her independence.

“Our Friend Judith” (1960)

“Our Friend Judith” is narrated by a nameless female friend of Judith.

In order to provide more reports about Judith, letters from Betty, a

common friend of Judith and the narrator, are inserted in the narrative.

These two female friends of Judith, the narrator and Betty, seem to be

married. Betty is one of Lessing’s archetypal married women who lacks

emotional independence from her husband. The title “Our Friend Judith”

(not “My Friend Judith”) suggests that the narrator is on the same side as

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Betty. Although the narrator neither tells about herself nor expresses her

own opinion about Judith, we can assume that the narrator is married or

was married before. The narrator says, “It is characteristic of Judith that

the word spinster, used of her, provoked fascinated speculation about other

people”. Then, the narrator thinks of her active and intelligent aunts,

Emily and Rose. These aunts are over seventy and unmarried. Unlike the

typical negative image of the “English spinster”, they have a dynamic and

positive life without men. They live together, have many friends and read

a lot:

These ladies, my aunts Emily and Rose, are surely what is meant

by the phrase English spinster. And yet, once the connection had

been pointed out, there is no doubt that Judith and they are

spiritual cousins, if not sisters. Therefore it follows that one’s

pitying admiration for women who have supported manless and

uncomforted lives needs a certain modification? (MTW, 173)

As a single woman, Judith is always the centre of these married women’s

curiosity. Therefore, the motivation of this short story is the narrator’s

interest in understanding her unique single friend, Judith. The interesting

aspect for readers of this short story is the process whereby not only are

these typical married women shocked to face their unmarried friend’s

peculiar behaviour and way of thinking, but also Judith herself is shocked

to discover her true nature as a woman.

The narrator takes up three incidents that she thinks are important in

understanding Judith. The first one takes place when Betty tries to give

Judith an expensive Christian Dior dress which Betty has been given but

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does not fit her. Betty says, “It’s not a dress for a married woman with

three children and a talent for cooking” (MTW, 173). Gazing at Judith in

Betty’s elegant dress, the narrator and Betty are breathtakingly im-

pressed. They both know Judith is beautiful, but Judith in the dress is not

her usual image. Judith looks magnificent in the dress, like a “rather

intellectual wood nymph who had opted for an afternoon in the British

Museum reading-room” (MTW, 174). Although Betty insists on Judith

keeping the dress, Judith returns it and goes back to her ordinary outfit:

“In the shapeless skirt and blouse, and without make-up, she stood smiling

at us, a woman at whom forty-nine out of fifty people would not look

twice” (MTW, 174). I interpret this incident as important for both the

narrator and Betty because although they always knew Judith was

beautiful, they rediscover Judith’s beauty and see her not as a spinster, but

as a beautiful woman. Judith seems to understand her friends’ psychologi-

cal make-up and with a mocking smile she remarks, “One surely ought to

stay in character, wouldn’t you say?” (MTW, 174). The “character” of

course indicates Judith’s social position as a spinster, a persona through

which her friends are always unconsciously trying to see her. However, the

point here is that it is not only her friends’ reactions, but also her own

reactions that Judith makes a mockery of. It is Judith’s own choice not to

be a beautiful woman, but to be an invisible person so as to “stay in

character”.

According to the narrator, the “second revelatory incident” (MTW, 174)

is Judith refusing to have her male cat castrated and instead sending it to

a veterinarian to be put down. Her ungelded cat is the cause of complaints

from neighbours, and the landlord tells her that either the cat or she must

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leave the flat. Judith has looked for a new owner for the cat under the

condition that they must “not to have the cat ‘fixed’” (MTW, 174), but in

vain. The narrator’s response, in speaking to Betty is:

[S]he didn’t think of compromising? After all, perhaps the cat

might have preferred to live, if given the choice? (MTW, 175)

Betty replies:

Is it likely I’d have the nerve to say anything so sloppy to Judith?

It’s the nature of a male cat to rampage lustfully about, and

therefore it would be morally wrong for Judith to have the cat

fixed, simply to suit her own convenience. (MTW, 175)

Lessing uses Betty to help her readers imagine Judith’s motivation in

killing her cat. Judith seems to respect the nature of a male cat more than

its right to live. Assuming that Betty’s interpretation is right, the third

incident tells more about Judith’s personality. She allows a young

American who lives in Paris to use her flat while she is away. The narrator

describes what happens as follows:

The young man and his friends lived it up for ten days of alcohol

and sex and marijuana, and when Judith came back it took a week

to get the place clean again and the furniture mended. She

telephoned twice to Paris, the first time to say that he was a

disgusting young thug and if he knew what was good for him he

would keep out of her way in the future; the second time to

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apologize for losing her temper. ‘I had a choice either to let

someone use my flat, or to leave it empty. But having chosen that

you should have it, it was clearly an unwarrantable infringement

of your liberty to make any conditions at all. I do most sincerely

ask your pardon.’ (MTW, 175)

I think the last two incidents are especially important because they

show Judith’s values. Her respect for the liberty of other people or a cat is

evidence of her own desire for autonomy. As the young American’s

freedom or the cat’s nature should not be interfered with, Judith seems to

hope to live as she is. Her desire becomes even more prominent in the

following event.

Judith has a lover who is a married professor. When Betty asks Judith

about the possibility of marriage, Judith replies that “the role of a mistress

suited her better” (MTW, 179). Moreover, Judith tells Betty that “while she

liked intimacy and sex and everything, she enjoyed waking up in the

morning alone and her own person” (Lessing’s italics) (MTW, 179).

However, later on the professor thinks that he should divorce his wife and

get married to Judith. Judith’s hesitation can be explained if we consider

her desire for independence. So far, her social status as a spinster or a

mistress has been convenient for her to be “her own person”. But if one gets

married, it is generally difficult to keep the physical and psychological

space of one’s “own person”. Therefore, in order “to collect herself”

(Judith’s own words), she takes a trip to Italy.

In the meantime, Betty realises her over-dependency on her husband,

and she goes to Italy for a holiday to regain her “self-respect”. Just before

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starting an affair with someone, Betty loses heart. She confesses to the

narrator that “Better face it, once you’re really married you’re not fit for

man nor beast” (MTW, 180). Then Betty follows Judith to Florence.

In Italy, Judith meets a local barber, Luigi, and flirts with him.

According to Betty’s report, Judith and Luigi make a very good couple:

“Here she’s quite different, all relaxed and free. She’s melting in the

attention she gets” (MTW, 182).

However, this relationship does not work out. One day in Italy,

Judith’s young female cat has kittens, but as it is so young, it kills the first

kitten. As a precaution, Luigi then kills all the rest of the kittens. This

event causes Judith to leave Luigi and he has his heart broken. After

admitting that he is fundamentally a good person and he was right to have

killed the kittens, Judith reflects on the true reason for their break up:

“It’s not a question of right or wrong [of killing the kittens] is it? Why

should it be? It’s a question of what one is” (MTW, 190). This “one” refers

more to Judith herself than to Luigi. Although Judith understands in her

mind that Luigi is right to have killed the kittens, the incident disturbed

the feeling in her heart. Luigi’s sister tells Betty, “Judith was sorry when

she left us . . . She was crying” (MTW, 185). Far from “collect[ing] herself”,

the experience in Italy seems to have awoken her repressed nature as a

woman and confused her sense of identity. So far, her status as a spinster

or a mistress has protected her from the emotional life, and she could be

“her own person”. However, witnessing the parturition of her cat in Italy

has touched her maternal nature and awoken her from her self-indulgence

in the role of glamorous lover of Luigi. To the “question of what one is”,

Judith’s answer is that she chooses to have an unemotional and

― 1029 ―

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independent identity such as her status as a spinster or a mistress, and not

the identity of being Luigi’s glamorous lover. Actually Judith admits,

“No, right from the beginning I’ve felt ill at ease with the whole business,

not myself at all” (MTW, 190).

At the end of the story, Judith reflects on her affair with the Italian

man: “But if one cannot rely on what one feels, what can one rely on?”

(MTW, 190). Then the narrator says, “On what one thinks, I should have

expected you to say” (MTW, 190). This dialogue has profound implications.

The narrator is suggesting that Judith’s identity represented by “her own

person” is only supported by her rational thought processes ― “think” ―

that repress her natural feeling as a woman. The important theme in this

short story is Judith’s quest for psychological independence and autonomy.

Although Judith admits that she likes “intimacy and sex”, the most

important thing for her is to preserve her own independence. However,

Judith’s limitations should be pointed out. In order to be “her own

person”, Judith seems to be afraid of further commitment with any man.

We have to wait for the theme of love to appear in Lessing’s later works to

see Judith’s possibility of having “her own person” and men at the same

time. In this short story, Lessing challenges the feminist position on

women’s pursuit of psychological independence. The story implies that the

independent identity can be only gained by “think [ing]” and not by “feel

[ling]”. Through Judith’s change from being a woman who “think[s]” to

being a woman who “feel[s]”, Lessing suggests the difficulty of balancing

rational and intelligent thought with natural emotion. Especially when it

comes to the maternal instinct, the conflict between thought and feeling

becomes more explicit.

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The next story I want to look at is similar to this in that it deals with

such complicated feelings that women have. The profound loving relation-

ship with her husband, the temptation of new love, and the influence of the

maternal instinct all come together for the heroine in the next story.

“A Man and Two Women” (1963)

In the second volume of her autobiography, Lessing raises the

question:

If there is a convention that easy sex is a sign of general liberation,

civilization, and equality, then what happens to all the subtle

to-and-fro, the natural affinities and antipathies ― real sex, in

short?13

“A Man and Two Women” deals with the encounter of “easy sex” and “real

sex”. The story is set in a country cottage in Essex. One summer day,

Stella visits Jack and Dorothy Bradford, who are renting the cottage. Jack

and Dorothy have been good friends of Stella and her husband for a year.

Stella ascribes her kinship to the Bradfords to two common points. For one

thing, although in different fields, the four of them are all artists.

Secondly, the marriage of both couples is a “real marriage” (TRN, 262),

according to Stella’s terminology:

She [Stella] understood she enjoyed being with the Bradfords

because the two couples were equal in this. Both marriages were

those of strong, passionate, talented individuals; they shared

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13 Ibid., 341.

a battling quality that strengthened them not weakened them.

(TRN, 262-63)

In the cottage in Essex, Stella finds a change in the Bradfords’ attitude

caused by their newly born baby. Dorothy, who has just had her first

baby, is emotional. Stella immediately knows that Dorothy’s mental

instability is due to her deep love and excitement towards the baby. Stella

herself had a daughter before she met her present husband. From her own

experience, she interprets Dorothy’s situation: “it was like being in love,

having a new baby”. Jack is tired and in a bad mood. Dorothy hurts Stella

by asking how Stella manages her loneliness during her husband’s absence

on business for a couple of months a year and reminding Stella of the

possibility of her husband’s infidelity. Explaining to Dorothy about the

situation makes Stella realise that there is an inbalance between herself and

her husband about the degree of intimacy they need. Stella has to admit

that she misses her husband when he is away and is hurt by his infidelity.

However, Dorothy’s real point is that she does not care about her husband’s

fidelity since the baby has been born. Dorothy goes so far as to suggest

that Jack and Stella should have an affair.

Throughout the story, the development of the agitation of Stella and

Jack caused by Dorothy is well described. Stella feels herself becoming

emotionally unstable because Dorothy reminds her that she misses her

husband very badly. Now Stella has to repress her jealousy of Dorothy,

whose husband is always with her and who, moreover, has a baby. Jack is

confused by the change in Dorothy after the baby’s birth ― it seems she

has lost interest in her husband ― and is angry about Dorothy’s manner

― 1032 ―

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with Stella.

When it is time for Stella to go home, Dorothy suggests Jack should

walk Stella to the railway station. Stella’s emotion reaches its height with

her sweet and warm memories of having her own baby and thoughts of

Dorothy’s happiness. Her eyes are filled with tears. Stella notices Jack

holding her bare arm with concern. Jack and Stella, both being discom-

posed by Dorothy, are now feeling great sympathy and affection towards

each other:

The warmth of his hand slid across her back, and she turned

towards him under its pressure. They stood together, cheeks

touching, scents of skin and hair mixing with the smells of

warmed grass and leaves.

She thought: What is going to happen now will blow Dorothy

and Jack and that baby sky-high; it’s the end of my marriage; I’m

going to blow everything to bits. There was almost uncontrollable

pleasure in it. (TRN, 279)

At the last moment, the image of the Dorothy’s baby comes into Stella’s

mind and she recovers her senses. Stella and Jack are able to avoid the

intimate moment.

Stella and Jack are connected not only by their vexation with Dorothy,

but also by friendship. If they become lovers, they may have “real sex” in

Lessing’s term, quoted in the beginning of this section. However, Stella

usually loves her husband and this intimate incident with Jack happens

just because of their extraordinary state of mind. Stella manages to stop

the sweet temptation and thus avoid the crisis. “[E]asy sex” can be seen “a

― 1033 ―

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sign of general liberation, civilization, and equality”, but this story tells us

that when one is able to overcome the temptation of sex and become

cautious, one is even more liberated and civilized. One’s having sexual

freedom does not mean one has to have sex. One has also the right to

choose not to have sex and to pursue or preserve something more impor-

tant. In the 1960s, when “easy sex” was rampant, Lessing did not simply

celebrate the freedom, but thought further.

Conclusion

Throughout Lessing’s works, she has shown that relationships with

men can influence her heroines’ identities considerably. Usually men are

not welcomed by those heroines who want to form or regain their own

identities. In these four short stories, women try to preserve their

identities by having or not having sex. In “A Woman on a Roof”, the naked

woman preserves her independence by ignoring men. In “One off the Short

List”, Barbara regains her autonomy and sleeping time by having pseudo-

sex with Graham. The male characters that appear in both “A Woman on

a Roof” and “One off the Short List” attempt to control the female

characters sexually but in vain. In the former story, the men are simply

rejected by the woman and in the latter story, the man is sexually

controlled by the woman. In “Our Friend Judith”, Judith chooses to be a

single woman and a mistress so as to remain as “her own person”. In “A

Man and Two Women”, Stella preserves her relationship with her husband

and her friendship with the Bradfords by not making love with Jack. It is

ironic that Barbara (in “One off the Short List”) almost has intercourse

with a man whom she hates, whereas Stella does not have intercourse with

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a man whom she likes. It reflects the reality that women’s reactions are

varied in preserving their own identities. Throughout these short stories,

Lessing portrays well the ambiguities of women’s feelings towards matters

such as heterosexual love, maternal love, close friendship and one’s

self-respect.

References

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: 1 The Will to Knowledge. London:

Penguin, 1990.

Larkin, Philip. Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite. London: Marvell Press, 1988.

Lessing, Doris. A Man and Two Women. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1963.

---. To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One. London: Flamingo, 1994.

---. “Women’s Quests.” Partisan Review (May 1992).

---. Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949-1962. London:

Flamingo, 1998.

Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina. Women in Twentieth-Century Britain. London:

Longman, 2001.

― 1035 ―

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