42 pages • 1 hour read
The Grass is Singing
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Symbols & Motifs
Seasons
The seasons are heavily symbolic to Mary. On the farm, Mary defines the phases of her life—including her happiness and sadness—according to the seasons. Summer is dreaded by most farmers as the heat is bad for crops and life in general, but Mary especially hates the summer. For Mary, the season reminds her of how poor she and Dick is. The heat inside their shabby house is not much different than outside. In fact, with the lack of a real roof and the smallness of the place, it gets even hotter indoors. Summer’s heat also makes Mary feel restless and hopeless, and when faced with the unending heat, Mary thinks of her time in the city when she was barely aware of seasons. Living on the farm, she is now acutely aware of the seasons and how they affect not only the farm but people, a concept that is foreign to Dick Turner. Dick is portrayed as a man who is neither ruled by the seasons nor free of them. He simply accepts them and moves on. Dick finds Mary’s reliance on the seasons strange, almost unnatural.
The Store
The store is symbolic of Mary’s childhood. It is indicative of everything she has tried to escape of her past. The novel relates how the store is symbolic itself of South Africa, for many. For Mary, the store is synonymous with poverty, particularly the poverty she endured while living with her mother and father. She dislikes the institution, and dislikes it even more when it is a native (kaffir) store. When Dick erects a native store on their farm, Mary initially refuses to run it. She wants nothing to do with the natives or the store’s cheap products, and even closes the store early because of her strong dislike of the place. Though the Turners need money, Mary’s dislike of the store as an institution and the natives as a people cause the Turners to lose money on the store. Interestingly, the store is also the last place that Mary seeks out before her death, only to find her killer, Moses, biding his time inside. The symbolism of her killer, a native, in a store she detests and has tried to run from her entire life, is startling and powerful.
Jonah
Jonah is the name given in jest to Dick Turner due to his bad luck. The farmers all know that no matter the season, Dick will run into misfortune. He never turns a profit, and all his dreams of enterprise turn to dust. It takes Mary a while to not only hear him being referred to as Jonah, but to see truth in this nickname. She reviews his books for the farm and indeed finds that bad luck follows Dick around, even with her help. Perhaps the saddest realization for “Jonah” is that his greatest failure—his greatest feat of bad luck—at least to Mary—is his marriage to her.
The Bush
The bush is symbolic of the land that surrounds the Turners farm. The bush is a dark, dangerous entity to Mary Turner, one she likens to an alien land. There is fear of night animals in the bush, but the bush is also something that the Turners must fight against so as not to let it overtake their farm. The doctor who visits when Dick Turner contracts malaria twice mentions cutting back the bush from the house, but the Turners never do, highlighting their inability to keep the bush—and the land—at bay. This is symbolic in that Mary also signifies the bush as a symbol of the natives. As such, she cannot keep her fear of natives at bay, and indeed is “overcome” by Moses when he murders her. In her last moments, she imagines the bush creeping toward her and sees that it is Moses, who has emerged from the bush, coming to kill her. Symbolically, she is killed by the bush in the guise of a slighted Moses.
Sjambok
The sjambok is a whip that hangs in the Turners house. It was an idea from Charlie Slatter who likes the idea of treating his servants harshly to show dominion over them. The sjambok is symbolic of power, both mental and physical power. It is revealed that Charlie even killed a native in anger, and Mary strikes Moses with the sjambok in a fit of anger herself. Mary uses the sjambok to remind herself that she holds the power when she supervises the native workers. Ultimately, however, the sjambok is viewed as the downfall of the Turners, for its use by Mary as a symbol of repression causes much of their bad luck in the novel. Her first encounter with her killer, Moses, comes when she strikes him with the sjambok.
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By Doris Lessing
