Doris Lessing’s ‘To Room Nineteen’: Summary, Themes, and Analysis
Doris Lessing and ‘To Room Nineteen’
Doris May Lessing (Kermanshah, Persia, 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013, London, England) was a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer, and short story writer. In 1925, Doris’ family moved to present-day Zimbabwe. Lessing was educated at the Dominican Convent High School, a Roman Catholic all-girls school in Salisbury. Later, she worked as a nursemaid, where she encountered the first materials that inspired her to write.
After her first
Read MorePicaresque Novel: Evolution, Characteristics, and Key Works
Picaresque Novel: Evolution and Key Features
The Story of Lazarillo de Tormes contains features that define the picaresque genre. Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache further established autobiographism, distinctive rogue characteristics, and the basic structural outline of the picaresque narrative. However, changes occurred due to evolving tastes and sensibilities during the Baroque period:
- Moralizing Digressions: The rogue’s moral norms refer to and condemn the criminal acts performed.
- Negative Worldview:
Miguel de Cervantes and Spanish Baroque Literature
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Poetry
- Minor poems: ballads, sonnets
- Major poems: epistle to Mateo Vazquez, song of Calliope, Parnassus trip
Theater
- First period: The Numancia, The Treatment of Algiers
- Second period:
- Eight plays: The Gallant Spanish, The Great Sultana, Baths of Algiers, The House of Jealousy, The Labyrinth of Love, Fun, Happy the Ruffian, Pedro de Urdemalas
- Eight Interludes: The Cave of Salamanca, The Jealous Old Man, Keeping Careful, The Altarpiece of the Wonders, The Judge in Divorce,
Understanding Dramatic Genres: Tragedy, Comedy, and More
Dramatic Genres: An Overview
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy presents a tragic conflict that results in a high heroism linked to ethical values. The hero must overcome an adverse fate. Its components are:
- Recklessness or arrogance of the hero
- Suffering of the hero
- Purifying of the passions
Comedy
Comedy approaches the story from a comic perspective, highlighting human imperfections naturally. The characters are often the same or worse than real people.
Tragicomedy (Revisited)
Tragicomedy mixes comedy and tragedy.
Read MoreThe 1960s: A Cultural and Literary Shift in Spain
The Sixties: A New Historic Turn
The early sixties marked a period of “desarrollismo” under Franco, where technocrats played a key role in promoting liberalization measures that led to economic growth.
Historical Realism in Literature
Writers adopted a more realistic approach to depicting the country’s social reality, focusing on the living conditions of the working classes and using language closer to everyday speech. The intention was to denounce perceived injustices.
Poetry
The crisis of symbolist
Read MoreBenito Pérez Galdós: A Deep Dive into His Literary Works
- In Doña Perfecta, Galdós studies the fictional city of Orbajosa, steeped in a close-minded tradition of inaction. Progressive engineer Pepe Rey, naively planning to marry Doña Perfecta, the woman who gives the book its title, finds himself entangled in a series of intrigues orchestrated by the city’s reactionary clergy. The play ends tragically.
- Marianela tells the story of a poor, deformed, and blind orphan who falls in love with the young bourgeois man she guides. Set in a mining town, the