![]() Eliot’s “Wasteland,” as the novella’s epigraph, reflects not only the “shattered and scattered images” and “fragmented state of the urbanized soul” of Lessing’s post-colonial Rhodesia, but also of the “desacralized environment” of Mary’s body and mind as she lays battered and broken on her doorstep (Berry par. Mary’s life unfolds through an agonizingly slow and foreboding series of flashbacks, beginning when she is found murdered. This gender-subversive dynamic is portrayed in Doris Lessing’s post-colonial trauma novel The Grass is Singing in the case of Mary Turner, whose repressed childhood sexual trauma leads her to undermine her husband’s masculinity and rule of his failing plantation, resulting in devastating consequences as their marriage deteriorates into chaos, mental illness, adultery, and ultimately murder.ĭenial of trauma is a foundational theme in Lessing’s novel. Subversion of traditional gender roles, and established systems of secrecy encourage the corruption of these royal females, who capitalize on their husband’s weaknesses and engage in emotional and psychological manipulation, while these patriarchs adopt a passive or subservient role in order to appease their wives. Corrupted queenship is often portrayed secondarily, though corruption is as much a characteristic of Queen Jezebel, Oedipus’ mother and wife Jocasta, and the Lady MacBeth, as it is in their respective husbands. In all these examples, kings are raised to and deposed from the throne through familial manipulation, betrayal and even murder. ![]() ![]() The corrupted monarch is nearly a trope in the literary sphere, from biblical examples such as the reign of King Ahab, to fictionalized historical accounts such as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s MacBeth. ![]()
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