Human Equality and Racial Dignity

張乾乾

This semester I read a novel named The Grass Is Singing about peoples tragic lives under racial discrimination. The writer Doris Lessing, a British novelist, had a similar life experience in the countryside in Southern Africa. Lessings family moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia to farm maize when she was a little child. The environment there was so rough, her mother Emily tried to impose her original lifestyle on the natives, while her father was not able to adapt to the living condition. They farmed a small field, but the farm did not deliver any monetary value, so they were not wealthy all along.

The descriptions in the book all came from the hard time Lessing had lived through, thus the pain and sorrow were all straight from the bottom of her heart. That was why her emotional expressions were so attracting, and why she could win the Nobel Prize.

The whole story starts from its ending: the Turners are found killed in their house and the murderer, a black labor is arrested by local police. The writer uses flashback to cause suspense and draw readers interests, and the special structure is a great success. A poet named The Waste Land by T.S.ELIOT is used as preface of the book, which gives us a burning and vast feeling.

Mary, a girl who is brought up by a poor white couple, lives an extremely unfortunate life in her childhood. She feels ashamed of her alcoholic father, her cowardly mother and her crash-trapped family, so she is eager to stay away from them and change her destiny. She really succeeds at the very start after leaving her hometown. Everything in the busy city is brand new, and everyone there treats her as a friend. She finds a job as a secretary, becomes a wage earner, stays in the girls club lightheartedly and comfortably with single girls. She knows nothing about racial discrimination and never considers getting married. Not until she overhears her friends gossip does she realize that how ridiculous and unacceptable an overage unmarried female is in peoples minds.

Dick, a poor white farmer who has been working day after day to find a wife, runs into Mary at the theater. He falls in love with her at first sight because she is more beautiful than any other girls he has ever met in the countryside. Mary happens to search for a husband at that time, so they rush into marriage. Being accustomed to the city lifestyle, Mary cannot bear the poor and messy condition there. Mary fires all of the black servants because she is not willing to get along well with them. She also insists on the overstrict treatment towards those black labors and even whips one named Moses. Dick has no choice but to bring one of his labors home to do the housework, and it happens to be Moses. Things begin to get out of control. Mary cannot get any comfort from his husband, but it seems that Moses, who takes care of everything in this house can give her. He invades her heart, upsets her life and controls her mind. Mary is scared, but she cannot help but think of him. She falls into disorder. She expels Moses out of the pressure from others and her own racial pride. She is eager to get rid of the fear, but the choice given is to leave the old farm and to start a new life.

It all stops that night—a night before dawn, a night before another chance, a night before the new life. Moses shows up and takes revenge on them for the unfair treatment he has received, for Marys betrayal, or even for the white supremacy and the whole society. Finally Mary is dead, Moses is arrested, and the astonished young man is left behind.

What are the major causes to Marys tragedy?

The first one is the bad relationship with her parents. The growth environment, which can decide ones character, is of vital importance to a child. Mary was born of a poor white family. Seeing her abusive, alcoholic father and a mother who complained and cried all day, she knew the unfortunate life of such a family from a very early age. She also received the traditional education, which taught her about racial discrimination. As a white girl, she had the racial superiority. Meanwhile, she despised, hated and also feared the blacks. But her familys living condition was no better than the blacks in Southern Africa. It was ridiculous to make such a racial segregation because it was only used to prove that the whites were better than the blacks.

The second one is the lack of communication with her friends. Marys childhood contributed to her unsociable and eccentric character. Although she came to the city, the character cannot be easily changed. She always seemed a little bit distant, and never made a real friend. When other girls confided their troubles and worries to her, she only listened to them, but never responded. She did not like the parties, and never care about others opinions of her. She lived such kind of life lightheartedly until thirty. People began to regard her as an abnormal female because she was too old to be single. Her inappropriate dressing led to contempt and taunt. She knew by accident that people had been talking about her behind her back for a long time. So she was in despair, the only way she could find to save herself was to marry a man and leave the heartbreaking place.

I noticed that from the beginning to the end of this incident, Mary never tried to communicate with her friends. She doubted about the friendship, hated their opinions and made her decision all alone. She remained her thoughts and feeling in her heart and refused to open up to others. Being too easy to lose confidence in the world resulted in the distortion of her character, and the warped character intensified her anxiety. That was a vicious circle, which made her a distorted woman.

The third one is her marriage. Marys parents had a terrible marriage, and she was not immune. The marriage with Dick did not save her, on the contrary, it brought her to the unfortunate destiny. Although Mary had been struggling for some years, she was becoming more like her mother. She complaint about her life and her husband all day, but she was not strong enough to change it. As a consequence, Mary became neurotic, bad-tempered and crazy.

Actually Mary was almost normal at the very beginning, she spent much time and energy on repairing and decorating the shabby house. I think maybe it was Dicks negative attitude that had a bad influence on her. In a marriage, a woman may want her husbands support, understanding and respect. However, what Mary expected was his admiration and absolute obedience. Poverty made Dick such a coward that he did not dare to say anything against Mary, but a mans self-esteem forced him to resist. There was no love in this marriage, but only a twisted relationship.

The tragedy has its root in the value conception of the whole society. Racial discrimination was so ingrained in this continent, and the whole Southern Africa made it a common view that black peoples social status was lower than the whites. The blacks had to do the most menial work, had no right to do anything, and were treated as instruments of labor instead of independent individuals.

No one dared to break and cross the border between the two races, so did Mary. When she went to the farm to command and whipped the black labors, she had a feeling of self-satisfaction, though she was afraid of their revenge. After knowing that the blacks had no right to resist or accuse her, she began to get used of doing such kind of things. She was the typical representative of white farmers.

It was really a pity that Mary was killed that night, but what if Moses did not kill her? Actually Mary still could not start a new life. The knife Moses used to stabbed her only made her death earlier. Even if it had not happened, Mary would also have died in despair sooner or later. Since the racial discrimination still existed, the pain would last forever, and everyone under this social hierarchy would not get real freedom.

Conflict between different cultures and value conceptions should not be ignored because the cultural superiority usually leads to racial discrimination. The novel also talked about feminism, on which Lessing always insisted. Mary was just a miniature of countless women at that time, whose rights and requests were always ignored, whose social status was lower than men.

We should reflect on these issues seriously. We should also reflect on ourselves. Do we have the racial discrimination or sexual prejudice in our daily lives? We should know that the basic human rights and dignity should be respected, and people should be treated equally regardless of race, gender or religion.

Just as a comment written at the first page of the book, “It is by the failures and misfits of a civilization that one can best judge its weakness.” Any individual misfortune can boil down to the tragedies of the age, the society and the nationality. However, the failures of a civilization can only be exposed through an individuals wrong choices and personality defects. A womans tragedy represents the universal misfortune of the whole society, and it should have set off an alarm bell. Remember that whoever you are facing, the rights and the dignity should be respected, and that is the basic principle of life.