Chapter One Reasons for Rebellion

   Mary Turner, the protagonist of The Grass Is Singing, is a tragic figure always struggling in predicaments. Born to a poor family in South Africa, she suffers from a depressive childhood. What she has experienced as a child are her mother’s bitterness and complaint for her father’s uselessness and irresponsibility as a husband and father, and the endless quarrel happening in the poor family. Therefore, Mary is born a poor white, and what’s worse, she is never able to get rid of this identity as her miserable marriage drags her into a worse situation. Meanwhile, living in South Africa in the 1950s, Mary, as a poor white woman, has to face a society dominated by men and accepts the irrational rules set by white colonizers to treat the colonized black “correctly”. All these result in Mary Turner’s predicaments where she suffers and gradually disintegrate.

1.1 Oppressed by Patriarchal System

   The Grass Is Singing is set in South Africa. In the 1950s, South Africa is a country dominated by men. White men take control of the whole society. They are the center of the farm, the center of business and also the center of the family. In such a society, it’s every woman’s duty and even destiny to marry a man, give birth to babies and  be a submissive wife and mother. And under the oppression of the patriarchal system, women are confined to their houses, depending on their husbands both mentally and economically. Accustomed to resigning themselves to their husbands and doing whatever they expect them to do, women gradually lose themselves and become the belonging of men.

In the novel, Mary’s mother, “a tall, scrawny woman with angry, unhealthy brilliant eyes” (Lessing 30), is a typical victim of the patriarchal system. Having been married to a husband who can’t make enough money to support the family but is still addicted to drinking, Mary’s mother lives an extremely poor and miserable life. Throughout her life, quarrels, complaint, poverty and pain never end. Sometimes, she even cries over her sewing and needs Mary’s comfort to get by. 

We can’t deny that Mary’s mother’s tragedy is caused partly by her father’s incompetence. But this is only part of the reason. More importantly, living in a society dominated by men, Mary’s mother has been deeply influenced by the rules of the patriarchal system. She accepts those rules and performs her role as a housewife and mother which is what the society expects every woman to do. She has no job and no intention to make any money because for her that’s what the society requires every man, not woman, to do. 

Therefore, as a woman, she totally depends on her husband to earn a salary and support the family. If her husband were rich, everything would go on smoothly. However, not lucky enough to marry a rich husband but a poor pump man working on the railway, she is doomed to live a tough life. The salary that Mary’s father earns can never make ends meet. And every time he comes home drunk and with little money in his pocket, her mother will behave as if he were simply not there for her. She will walk up to the store where her husband buys drinks, complaining that she can’t make ends meet while her husband still wastes his salary on drink. She is not ashamed of doing so but enjoys other drinkers’ sympathy and gets relief from it. For Mary’s mother, a man who can’t make enough money is useless. Thus, she despises and ignores her husband.