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ornamental line

A Space, A Place


"As for our thoughts, our intellectual apparatus, our rationalisms and our logics [. . .]
as we sit in the ruins of this variety of intelligence, it is hard to give it much value:
I suppose we are under-valuing it now as we over-valued it then. It will have
to find its place: I believe a pretty low place, at that” (81).
Doris Lessing's The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)


Points for Reflection

D. Lessing's The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), 3-108

  1. Relying on clues and minutiae scattered throughout this week’s reading, shape a convincing argument that the narrator is either male or female.
  2. Why might Lessing refuse to explain the contours of the cataclysm that is reshaping society? Why choose not to explain the mechanism of the tragedy, the geographical specifics, etc.?
  3. Sort through the various clues provided by the text in a concerted, organized attempt to determine what exactly has happened to the world in which Lessing’s characters live.
  4. Does the changing nature of the world drive people towards or away from one another? Does the unnamed crisis, that is, create or destroy interdependence and community? [Riley D]
  5. Is the government in this novel impotent?
  6. As constructed by the novel, is the act of remembering something which separates people or binds them together?
  7. Is the narrator actually stepping through his/her living room wall, or is this act of penetration occurring only in the imagination?
  8. Is Emily more similar to the narrator than she is different?
  9. Is the life situation of those living in the rapidly changing world improved or worsened by the loss of technology? Consider the social fabric, material situation, and/or value systems of a few characters in your response.
  10. How do the appearance and function of romantic love change in the new social order?
  11. In what ways does society not change despite the pressures of the transformed world?
  12. Compare and contrast the two types of rooms behind the narrator’s living room wall—the “personal” and oppressive rooms with the “impersonal” and chaotic rooms. When read symbolically, what do they each seem to represent?
  13. What is a likely explanation for the “guilt” felt by Emily’s mother and father, witnessed in the “personal” rooms behind the narrator’s wall?
  14. While on the other side of her living room wall, the narrator repeatedly senses the presence of whom just around the corner (someone whom she never quite sees)?
  15. Hugo is more than a strange amalgam of two different species. He represents something important for both Emily and the narrator. Form a coherent argument about his function within the narrative.



Puberty (1894)
Edvard Munch


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu