To Room Nineteen

The omniscient, first-person narrator of the story stays close to Susan’s mind throughout, though the unnamed speaker also speculates on how others in her social circle might respond to certain events and on what Matthew might be thinking. By using this style of narration, Lessing is able to expose the tensions between what her protagonist is thinking and how others around her might perceive those rather unconventional thoughts.

Indeed, the story turns on subverting convention in general. The Rawlings’s marriage is thoroughly conventional: The couple is well-matched; they lead a comfortable and stable middle-class existence; and the family unit, with two boys and two girls, a stay-at-home mom, and a working dad, conforms to the ideal. As soon as the story has established this, it upends the reader’s expectations with a straightforward yet emphasized phrase: “And yet…” (2545). The ellipsis indicates what can only be ominous anticipation—a warning of very different things to come.

The narrator then goes on to express what, exactly, might be wrong with the match: “Their life seemed to be like a snake biting its tail” (2543). This ouroboros represents an endless succession of identical days wherein each partner fulfills certain roles and performs particular duties to perpetuate the cycle.