Dynamics of Power Relationship in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing and To Room Nineteen

Abstract

Doris Lessing contributes to the notion of power dynamics through self-representational social divisions and power-structures in her works. The aim of this study is to explore how Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing and To Room Nineteen portray the dynamics of power behind the social constructions of forces like patriarchy and social constraints. The study aims at finding out how structural power and resultant strategic action are related to each other and to outcomes of these from Lessing’s perspective. Identities are individual and collective that answer the question ‘who am/are/I/we?’ Hegemonic discourses of power and identity politics create invisible experiences of the more marginal members of that specific social category and construct a homogenized ‘right way’ to be its member. This is where the female protagonists of Lessing are Outsiders. The androcentric biased concept, ‘power-dependent’ or ‘power-independent’ complicates the positioning and placement of these women against social and personal domains. Because of the values and culture of male domination and of discrimination against women, women have been deprived of their subjective position. Fanatic patriarchal norms are regulated to suppress women’s exercise of power. The intersectional social divisions or the power structures influence an individual’s identity and control them. These power relations are based on control over authority, legitimacy, resistance, and power-dependency.