Doris Lessing's To Room Nineteen

In Doris Lessing's short story, "To Room Nineteen," the main character, Susan Rawlings,

has a drastic change in lifestyle from that of a successful, independent woman with her own

apartment, to that of a conventional 1950’s housewife. On the other hand, her husband has the

freedom to work outside of the house and frequently visits social events, still living the life of a

single man. Although Susan finds life dull with her new lifestyle, she tolerates these gender

roles, until her husband takes advantage of his liberty and jeopardizes their marriage by having

an affair. She rationalizes his actions and her denial of their relationship issues results in her

gradual mental instability. Critic James Gindin denies that Doris Lessing's short story "To Room

Nineteen" indirectly critiques female inequality during the 1950's, although many signs indicate

so.

James Gindin's criticism on Lessing's work is written in 1963, and his conservative

opinions reflect that the gender roles were still dominant during this time. He believes that “To

Room Nineteen” is not analyzing women oppression of the 1950’s, but rather analyzing a woman

who is confused about her sexual identity. Gindin sees Susan as a masculine woman who drops

her career life and her own apartment for married life, assuming "that she can control her

domestic world in the sane, masculine way that she controlled her job." Gindin’s perception of

this story is that Susan is not being held back by the masculine world, but that she played

masculine roles before her marriage and she does not want to accept her feminine roles now. His

critique patronizes women and gives a lesbian-like perception of Susan, as he believes that her

desire for a...

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...social events

together. However, it is also presumable that 1950's society would have caused them to have

marital problems in another sense because of their strive for perfection rather than happiness.

What lies beneath the theories of Susan and Matthew's "failure in intelligence" is that they were

not in love with each other, for with this bond, they would have been able to compromise and

communicate successfully for the sake of their marriage.

Works Cited

Lessing, Doris. "To Room Nineteen." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The

Twentieth Century and Beyond. Ed. Joseph Black and Leonard Conolly. New York:

Broadview Press, 2006.

Gindin, James. "Weary Wives and Lovers." Saturday Review. 47(1963): 42-3. Rpt. in

Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Edelstein. Vol. 22. Detroit: Gale Literary

Resources, 1980. 278-279.