American Man When Julie goes into labor, Debbie is not there to help her as she had promised. Instead, she has extended a trip with a client, an American television producer, who seems like a promising prospect. Debbie has always wished for “just one regular customer” or “just one man.” Anne Anne is Julie’s mother….
Tag: Doris Lessing
Debbie and Julie – Summary
The story opens with Julie, the pregnant teenager who is its protagonist, looking at herself in the mirror. She is in the London apartment of Debbie, a prostitute who took her in five months earlier, when she ran away from home to hide her condition from her parents. Julie is now in labor, and Debbie,…
Through the Tunnel: Analysis
Doris Lessing is known for being a writer whose work affects people. She tackles political issues but refuses to limit herself to being a political writer, and is equally acclaimed for her essays, fiction, and even science fiction dealing with interests ranging from nature to the status of women. “Through the Tunnel,” which is ultimately…
Through the Tunnel: Setting
“Through the Tunnel” was first published by the New Yorker magazine in 1955. Lessing had moved from British-controlled Rhodesia in South Africa in 1949. Six years later, little had changed. Apartheid, a legal system of racial segregation structured every aspect of life for both black and white people there, and racism exploded violently in the…
Through the Tunnel: Literary Devices
Point of View “Through the Tunnel” is written in third-person limited point of view. The narrator describes the feelings of both Jerry and his mother but does not penetrate the thoughts of the local boys. This separation associates the reader more closely with the white tourists who are unfamiliar with the area. By telling the…
Through the Tunnel: Themes
In Lessing’s story, the eleven year-old Jerry braves an underwater tunnel while he and his mother are on vacation. The tunnel evolves, into an enormous challenge for Jerry, as he deals with his loneliness and his attempts at separating from his mother. Rites of Passage Jerry’s beach vacation becomes the site of an intense personal…
Through the Tunnel: Summary
In Doris Lessing’s “Through the Tunnel,” Jerry, a young English boy, and his mother are vacationing at a beach they have come to many times in years past. Though the beach’s location is not given, it is implied to be in a country that is foreign to them both. Each tries to please the other…
Autobiographical elements in To Room Nineteen by Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing as a literary artist incorporates autobiographical elements in most of her works. And the short story “To Room Nineteen” is no different. The other recurrent theme of Lessing’s writing is her provocative brand of feminism, which also finds expression in this story. The objective of this paper is to draw parallels between the…