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 8-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Mary withdraws to the house in preparation for the tobacco farming. Though Dick implores her to help him with the planning, she leaves him alone for several reasons. She does not want to anger him and cause him to get defensive. Moreover, she does not like when Dick is helpless and dependent on her. She wants him to be the strong man she thought she married. Mary places her hope in the idea that the tobacco crop will raise them out of debt, as it has done many other farmers. In fact, both Dick and Mary put their hopes in tobacco. After a time, however, drought hits the land, and it affects the Turners more than other farmers. Dick eventually says what they have both been thinking, but dreading: their tobacco crop is a failure.
Mary is crestfallen at the disaster and becomes increasingly depressed to the point of walking around the house like a zombie, void of all emotion. Dick is partly happy that the tobacco crop was not his suggestion. Mary becomes so desperate and in need of hope, of something to give her attention to, that she one day asks Dick if they might have a child. Dick is delighted at the news. He had been wanting Mary to come to him of her own accord, but he soon realizes that Mary is not asking for a child because she loves him but out of boredom. Based on this, he refuses. He tells Mary they cannot afford to bring a child into the world.
Their woes continue, with Mary sinking further into depression and Dick having trouble turning a profit. Mary attempts to look at her husband as the kind-hearted, benevolent man she thought she married, but cannot get over her disgust for him. Meanwhile, Dick rails against the government for treating South African white farmers poorly, for putting the natives above the needs of the farmers, thus misplacing his anger and pent-up frustration at his failures. Their lives are soon disrupted again by another servant leaving. Word has spread that Mary is impossible to work for, just as Dick had warned her it would. It is now nearly impossible for them to find help for the house.
One day, Dick brings a field worker, Moses, to the house to work as the house servant. To Mary’s surprise and horror, it is the same native she struck and injured with the sjambok. Mary is racked with guilt and anger, and she tries to get Dick to find another servant, but he refuses. The native is the best servant that they have had, and Dick tells Mary that it is her fault that they are in this position. Mary treats Moses poorly, even more harshly than the other servants, yet he takes it all in stride. When Moses is cleaning himself one day, Mary looks at his half-naked body and wonders at his muscular physique. She is caught looking, which angers her. After this, she is even stricter with Moses. Dick notices how strict she is and orders Mary to treat Moses more kindly. She reluctantly agrees, then gives up ordering him around altogether, returning to her depressive state.
Chapter 9 Summary
With Moses now working in the house, Mary becomes obsessed with his presence. She resents him, yet for some reason finds her waking thoughts consumed with Moses. Her depression and obsession with Moses become so great that she slacks on her other duties. She forgets the general chores. She also neglects the chickens, which all die of starvation, angering Dick. Her rude treatment toward Moses causes the native to tell her one day that he will soon be leaving. Uncharacteristically, Mary breaks down in tears and tells him he cannot leave. She is horrified to think of Dick’s anger when he hears that yet another servant is leaving. Mary is also horrified that she has allowed herself to look so weak in front of a native, and in front of Moses, of all people. Calmly, Moses gives her water to drink, breaking the strict relationship between master and servant. Though Mary does not want to acknowledge his “cheekiness,” she allows herself to drink from the offered cup. He then gently pushes her toward her bedroom and suggests she go to sleep. Mary is shocked by her decision to allow all this to happen, but sleeps nonetheless. The next day, Mary tries to appear as her usual self to Moses, but when she critiques him on something, he asks angrily why she is so rude when she has asked him to stay. Mary then realizes that their relationship has been altered with her teary plea. Moses changes in relation to her, bringing her food when she does not ask for it and attempting to please her, all actions that should anger her. Throughout this time, Mary begins to see Moses as a strong, physical presence, one that also enters her dreams.
Dick gets sick from malaria again, and again the doctor visits and chides Mary for not having taken any of his advice during the previous sickness. Though Dick is severely ill, he now knows what the sickness entails. Mary continues to nurse him, but is exhausted. One night Moses offers to watch over Dick so that Mary can get some sleep. Mary adamantly refuses, afraid of having Moses in the house and so close, but he prevails by showing that he knows how to take care of Dick, and Mary retreats to the couch. She is unable to sleep as she knows that Moses is a mere six inches away from her. She tries to sleep, but the fear of Moses and the manifest fear of the bush swallowing up their farm causes her to become afraid. She finally sleeps and has a nightmare where she catches her mother and father right before they have sex. In another dream, her father holds her head in his crotch as she struggles for breath and smells his scent, which disgusts her. Her dream morphs into her thinking that her husband is dead, and that Moses is silently waiting for her in the next room. She goes to see that he is indeed dead, and senses Moses, who is also her father in the dream, approaching her. She screams in horror and realizes that she has been dreaming. Moses is standing in front of her and she reels back in horror. He asks in his taunting way if she is afraid of him, which she adamantly denies. He looks at her trembling body, sensing she is lying, then leaves.
Mary then avoids Moses for the rest of the day. She neglects her farm work and even her work around the house, hoping not to see him. At night, she locks the doors and sleeps next to Dick, happy to be back next to him. Dick soon recovers fully from the malaria and returns to work. Mary wants to ask Dick to replace Moses, but is afraid of his ire. She feels that she and Moses are coming toward some dangerous end, and Moses also feels the same way. The narrative points to the difference in them being that Moses is strong and sure of himself, while Mary is weak, depressed, and uncertain of what the end might be.
Chapter 8-9 Analysis
Mary takes inventory of the farm and realizes that Dick is incompetent. She explained all this to him back in Chapter 7 and as a result, they attempt to turn a profit with tobacco farming. Chapter Eight finds her anticipating the tobacco farming, as Dick sets about building the barns. He wants her input, but she refuses to help. She wants Dick to be the man she first married, the person she thought she married, a confidant man. She also knows that whenever she tries to give advice, Dick shuts down with wounded pride. For the first time in a while, Mary exhibits hope that their lives will improve and that they will be able to leave the farm with what they make from the tobacco.
Disaster soon strikes and the tobacco crop is a failure, disheartening them both. Dick is a bit relieved because the tobacco was Mary’s suggestion. Its failure shows that he is not completely at fault due to his chronic bad luck. Mary sinks into a more troubling depression, one that leaves her in a confused metal state. She neglects her chores and the house in general. Though she tries to look at Dick as a good man, she is troubled by his lack of character, what she sees as the “something” that should hold him together. Dick uses this failure to blame the government. He sees the government as caring little for the white farmer while caring too much for the wellbeing of the natives. He even thinks that the white farmers have a “natural right” to treat the natives however they please.
When another native quits due to Mary’s bad management and bad reputation, an angry Dick is forced to bring a field native to work in the house. This native is revealed to be Moses. Mary is shocked, guilt-ridden, and afraid of the large, muscular native. She does not want him in the house, but Dick insists. Mary treats Moses more harshly than the other natives, though Moses takes her treatment in stride. Dick, however, sees this poor treatment and warns her again about mistreating the help. She eventually eases up, sinking into another bout of depression. Mary’s treatment of Moses highlights her guilt at striking him. She is also afraid at having him so close, especially when she thought that he was going to attack her after she struck him. A telling scene comes when Mary observes Moses bathing. She notes his strong, muscular body, looking on him in an almost sexual way, though it is not explicitly stated a such. He catches her staring, which angers her. It is a tense scene, and one that foreshadows the odd relationship between the two that only increases, drawing them closer.
The breaking point in Mary and Moses’s relationship comes when he informs her that he is going to quit due to her treatment. In an uncharacteristic move, Mary breaks down and begs Moses not to leave. Her behavior shocks both her and Moses. She has always been so aloof and condescending to natives, and she is angry at herself for letting Moses see her vulnerable. For Moses, the sight of a pleading white woman is strange, especially one that has treated him so rudely. As Mary feared, Moses begins to act familiar around her, exhibiting behavior that was once unacceptable. She has no way to reign him in as she has shown how vulnerable she is, thus altering the power dynamic between them.
When Dick falls ill from malaria again, the odd relationship between the two continues. Mary begins to dream of Moses sexually, conflating his dark presence with the dark presence of her father. Her fear of Moses becomes the fear of her father, a fear that is both a fear of sex and a fear of the “other.” As much as Mary hates Moses for being a native, she finds a “dark attraction” to him. He refuses to return to the role of quiet servant, telling her what to do and what he will do for her, including taking care of a sick Dick Turner. Mary can only accept these things, fearful of the new dynamic between the two. She eventually reveals that she is afraid of Moses, which seems to delight him. The narrative reveals that there is a dangerous end awaiting the two, and the reader knows from the very first chapter that this “end” in fact ends in death.
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By Doris Lessing
