42 pages • 1 hour read
Doris LessingThe Grass is Singing
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Mary and Dick Turner drive to his farm. They drive all night from the city, with Mary wondering what awaits her. She tries to tell herself to accept whatever comes, but finds herself speechless when they arrive at the farm in the dead of night. She notes how dark it is, and how menacing the night seems with the trees and bush around the squat house. Following Dick inside, she finds it no better than the outside, disliking the smell of animal and paraffin in the small house. She sees the animal furs in the living room and notes how the furniture is crudely made, all of which Dick takes pride in. She tries to put on a good front for Dick. She can tell that he is uncertain if she likes the place or not. When he begins talking again about the farm, she interrupts him, realizing that she has been rude, and suggests that they go into the bedroom. Inside she finds a new bed, and the two set about consummating their marriage. Though Mary does not like the house, or her new husband for that matter, she still feels a tenderness for him.
Chapter 4 Summary
It is the morning after the Turners’ wedding and the Mary’s night in the house. The two are in bed, but are formal with one another, as if they had not consummated their marriage the previous night. Dick soon informs Mary that he must leave for work. He introduces her to Samson, the long-employed house native. Samson knows how to run the house as Dick likes it and shows Mary around. In the kitchen, he comments that the keys are left with Dick, indicating that he cannot steal, as most whites would assume. Mary also notes that Dick leaves the provisions out, as well as adding a third more so that Samson can take what he pleases. This kindness angers Mary. Dick later returns and, while eating, complains that Samson has left the dogs out and that they have made a mess. He then leaves, and Mary sets about working in the kitchen. She finds a book on kaffir, the language whites use to communicate with the natives, and begins to learn in earnest.
Chapter 5 Summary
Mary sets about remodeling the house to her standards. She spends her own savings to decorate, making new cushions and curtains. She also “reigns in” the freedom Samson is used to, which includes taking away his third allotment of provisions so as not to waste food. When she finishes with housework, she begins sewing and making clothes. Though filled with energy, Mary searches for Dick’s approval with every new thing she adds to the house. For his part, Dick is amazed at her steadfastness, having thought that Mary would need time to adjust to life on the farm. He is relieved that Mary does not seem lonely at all, but also feels impatient at her not wanting to sleep with him again. He promises himself he will wait for her to come to him freely. Mary picks up on this, relieved, for she sees Dick as more of a brother than a husband.
Mary also whitewashes the walls, and then pulls out all her books and tries reading them, but finds herself unable to engage with the books. She asks Dick if they might have ceilings, especially due to the heat, but Dick says there is no money. Mary then finds herself again with nothing to do and decides to finish learning kaffir. She angers Samson with her meddling and the dock in pay she forces on him, and he quits. Dick is reluctant to let Samson go as he has worked with him for so long. He allows it, to Mary’s shock, and informs her that there are specific ways of dealing with natives to ensure a well-working relationship, but Mary is spiteful and angry nonetheless.
The heat becomes too much for Mary and she regrets having spent all her money on other things when she could have used it for the ceiling. Two more servants arrive and Mary treats both cruelly, to Dick’s growing dismay. He suggests she accompany him out on their land to get her away from the house. She eventually joins him, but cannot listen to Dick talk about the farm as she is thinking about the mischief the house native might be engaging in without her there to supervise. She uses the heat as an excuse to return to the house.
Dick and Mary have a fight one day when he tells her she is using too much water. Mary is obsessed with the heat, something which surprises Dick because she seems beholden to the seasons, unlike him. Because of the heat, Mary has been having water brought twice a week to the house so that she might cool down with it. Dick thinks it wasteful, which angers Mary. He suggests having a bath instead to save water, but she comments on how dirty the bathtub is. She then has the house native attempt to clean it, to no avail. Having the native attempt so useless a task angers Dick.
One day, Charlie Slatter and his wife pay the Turners a visit. Mary is beside herself as the servant has returned home to eat (she had forgotten to let him go earlier). Though the Slatters attempt to engage Mary, Mary’s pride does not allow her to engage them back. Dick and Charlie begin talking about farming, and Dick assumes Mary and Mrs. Slatter are speaking of “women things.” Mrs. Slatter knows firsthand the effects of poverty and so tries to be friendly toward Mary. Mary wants none of it, seeing the kindness as condescension. Mrs. Slatter eventually shuts down in response to Mary, realizing she will get nowhere. Dick is happy that Mary has had a visitor in Mrs. Slatter and encourages her to visit Mrs. Slatter. Though Dick does not like Charlie, he enjoys the change to have a male presence around and talk about the farm.
The two again get into arguments over the fact that yet another servant wants to leave. The servant desires to leave due to Mary’s poor treatment, but Dick convinces the native to stay, angering Mary even more. She takes issue with Dick addressing the servant so nicely in front of her and insists that the servant leave. Dick tells her that she needs to better understand the way things on the farm work, and that the servant will stay. Mary pays the servant and fires him anyway.
Mrs. Slatter invites Mary over but Mary refuses, offending Mrs. Slatter. She mentions her distaste for Mary, while Charlie explains how both Dick and Mary need some time together to view their lives realistically in relation to farming. He imagines her fancy ideas will eventually leave with time. Charlie visits the farm and chides Dick for his way of farming. Dick takes offense, saying he will farm how he thinks and that he will never ask Charlie for money. Discouraged, Dick puts all his effort into his farm. He wants a more profitable farm, and wants children more than anything. He believes that children will bring him and Mary closer together in their relationship. Mary, meanwhile, is growing even more discontent with life on the farm. She despises Dick for the way he treats her in relation to the servant and wants Dick to recognize her dislike of them.
Chapter 3-5 Analysis
Mary’s views of the farm and Dick’s expectations of marriage soon come to the forefront, revealing just how ill-matched the couple is. Mary strongly dislikes the bush and the small house that Dick brings her to. She instantly fears the bush around her, and as the narrative says, thinks of it as an alien land. This reaction to the land—now her land—is telling. Mary feels like a foreigner in her new home and she has yet to even enter the house. When she does, she is again disgusted by the sights and smells, and the smallness of the space. She tries to appear eager, sensing that Dick is watching her. For his part, Dick takes pride in what he has accomplished for himself. When Mary can stand no more and interrupts him, a telling moment in their marriage is highlighted. Mary’s patience for Dick and his “small accomplishments” is a recurring narrative in the novel. He can never do enough to please her, and she is always moving on to something else to occupy her time and satiate her patience.
The couple makes love on their wedding night, and in a strange revelation, Mary is revealed to hold Dick’s hand in a tender way, like a child’s. The narrative reveals early on that Mary feels tenderness for Dick initially. She looks on him as a mother who has a duty to a child instead of as a wife who genuinely loves her husband. This feeling, so early in the marriage, is indicative of many of the problems that will arise in their marriage over the years. Dick is searching for a wife to have children with and love him—and the farm—in a genuine way. Mary is searching for a husband to make her feel accomplished as a woman, especially after her friends commented that she is not capable of such a thing.
Mary’s first real encounter with natives is also highlighted in these chapters. The Mary that was seen in the city, so calm and accepting, morphs into the Mary who strongly dislikes natives and seems to hold the prevailing bout of racism common to the South African whites of her time. As is revealed, Mary dislikes the natives more than Dick, and treats them poorly, harshly. Dick warns her about being too hard with the natives, but Mary’s superiority complex will not abate, and Dick’s longtime house native, Samson, eventually quits over Mary’s ill treatment. This exchange between Mary and Samson is a telling note that will repeat itself time and again throughout the novel as Mary’s hatred of natives always causes her to treat them so harshly that they leave. It is also an early indication of what might have transpired in Chapter One, from which the reader knows that Mary was killed by a house servant, Moses.
Mary and Dick quarrel often during these chapters. Mary is viewed as an impatient child with bouts of energy and endless anger. She does not understand the ways of the farm, how to treat natives to maximize their work or how to engage in civil rapport with their neighbors, something expected of her. When Charlie Slatter and his wife pay the Turners a house call in Chapter 5, Mary is her usual, bristly self and offends Mrs. Slatter. This is the first time the reader sees the version of Mary that is despised by the rest of the farming community for her misplaced haughtiness and pride. Mary continues to quarrel with Dick over treatment of the natives and the farm in general. Her bickering points to the fact that Mary is a person who refuses to budge on issues, while Dick, at first patient, attempts to caution her and show her how to engage neighbors and natives alike. Chapter 5 also highlights the contention between neighbors, as Charlie Slatter is seen pondering how he might acquire Dick’s farm and Dick himself is shown not to like Charlie Slatter. Above all, the chapters reveal the rules and expectations for Mary as wife, neighbor and farmer. Mary, however, refuses to honor any of these rules or expectations, thereby upping the stakes and moving toward her untimely demise.
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