An Assignment
Explication of Doris Lessing’s
‘WOMAN ON THE ROOF’

Contents

1) Facts about The Author, Doris Lessing 2) The Explication of the Story 3) Bibliography notes 4) Card Notes

1) Facts about the Author, Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing the author of ‘Woman On Top Of The Roof’ is a British novelist and short-story writer, whose interest in psychology led her to fictional explorations of madness and self-analysis. Much of her work is concerned with the everyday and inner lives of perceptive, sensitive women. One of her famous books, The Golden Notebook became a classic of feminist literature because of its experimental style and explorations of self, creativity, and feminine identity. However ‘Woman On Top of the Roof’ a much simpler work revolves around the same issue of mild feminism and transcendence. Here a single young woman transcends inspite of aggravation from a male dominated surrounding. She does not allow them to effect her own individuality in this story.

Lessing's life has been a challenge to her belief that people cannot resist the currents of their time, as she fought against the biological and cultural imperatives that fated her to sink without a murmur into marriage and motherhood. "There is a whole generation of women," she has said, speaking of her mother's era, "and it was as if their lives came to a stop when they had children. Most of them got pretty neurotic - because, I think, of the contrast between what they were taught at school they were capable of being and what actually happened to them."

Lessing believes that she was freer than most people because she became a writer. For her, writing is a process of "setting at a distance," taking the "raw, the individual, the uncriticized, the unexamined, into the realm of the general."

These reflect Lessing's interest, since the 1960s, in Idries Shah, whose writings on Sufi mysticism stress the evolution of consciousness and the belief that individual liberation can come about only if people understand the link between their own fates and the fate of society.

The Explication of the Story

Paragraph 1 (till line 5)

Lessing starts off the story with a description of three men at work on the roof during the week of the hot sun. I believe Lessing wanted to emphasize the characteristics of men of the construction class. These guys were tough, they were constantly exposed to heat, hard headed, domineering and egoistical. The scene is set where there were buildings and roof tops which symbolizes hardness, coldness, both of which reflects the characteristics of men. In the middle portion of the paragraph, Lessing brings us to a part where the men see a woman sun bathing in the nude at another part of the building. They were excited over the fact initially but they became rather annoyed eventually, at least one of them was rather angry. Perhaps her boldness and she not being bothered about their presence caused in the men insecurity, also the source of their irritation. They could see she was just like them but she was a woman and they couldn’t accept that. To them she was inviting trouble, sunbathing like that, in a public place, in the nude. This further reflects the narrow mindedness of the men, restricting the woman’s freedom from within their minds even.

Another thought about the setting is that it speaks about 'space', personal and private space as opposed to public and social space. Males control the space of society by their presence. They hold more jobs, more prominent roles, they 'own' public space --- by having such dominance in society because they are men. Women, have tried to make themselves heard and seen in society without being discriminated against. Without having to watch and be careful about their dress (i.e. cover up otherwise you'll invite leers and harrassment). Without having to watch what they say for fear of offending people's cultural sensibilities (which are created by males anyway i.e. supposedly for the female gender's own good... but it is for the excuse that men 'cannot control themselves when it comes to sex and lust, etc') And this is exactly what this young woman is doing, she asserts her physical presence in public space (on the rooftops where people can see her) and just by doing that she makes a social statement for women's right to be whatever/whoever/doing anything they want. She raises the position of women as creatures who can stand the heat! the heat of Nature and the heat/stress/pressure imposed upon them by the male-dominated culture, social expectations and lifestyle. She wins a victory for women in this issue of 'having the right to exist' and also the issue of sexuality and women's bodies - that we own our bodies i.e. we own this personal space, we may display it to the world but our bodies belong to us, not men. Men cannot dictate what we do with it. i.e wear tudung, cover up, etc. Important too: we women should not self-impose that kind of restrictions unless we find that it is necessary. Any sort of self-inhibition in these ways betrays the freedom and liberty to be a woman.

Paragraph 2 (till line 10)

Paragraph 2 finds the woman on the roof sunbathing again but this time she had tied a red scarf around her breasts and wore a brief red bikini pants. Lessing reveals the character of the woman here. She is very bold, totally in control of herself, individualistic, independent and not easily intimidated. Surprisingly though we find one of the men, Harry saying “small things amuse small minds” when Stanley let out a wolf whistle!! does this mean that Harry is not a male chauvinist pig after all?? We don’t know yet (-; Also in this paragraph Harry was more concerned with work unlike his two colleagues, Tom and Stanley. They were more interested in watching and cat calling the woman on the roof rather than working. Ironically, we find out that Stanley was a newly married man and his behavior towards this whole scenario is not like a matured or a married man. When questioned about his ‘missus’ he replies ‘what about my missus’ – preserving his independence…was the following line. This only goes to show that Stanley was a male chauvinist totally selfish and felt that women ought not be independent but to be domineered by men! Tom on the other hand was a seventeen year old, obviously he was living his adolescence unfortunately he had two narrow-minded chauvinistic men to be his guide!

In the middle of the passage, we note that the men take turns to go have a peek at the woman whilst working and they report to one another of the progress that she’s made. When it came to Tom’s turn he did not report the truth of what he saw. He lied to them apparently because ‘he wanted to keep what he had seen to himself: he had actually caught her in the act of rolling down the little red pants over her hips, till they were no more than a small triangle. She was on her back, fully visible, glistening with oil’. Tom, I believe was under the impression ‘hey, I saw it all! This sight was especially for me, I mean something to her, that’s why I was the one to see her naked’. He not only had intruded the woman’s privacy by watching her sunbathing but by assuming that he meant something to her in his mind.

Towards the end of this paragraph, again “the woman on the roof is sunbathing, face down and arms spread out, donning only a little red pants. She had turned brown, for the day before she was scarlet and white woman. Stanley let out a whistle. She lifted her head startled as if she was asleep and then looked straight at him. The sun was in her eyes, she blinked and stared, then she dropped her head again”. At this gesture of indifference, the three men let out whistles and yells and they were all angry including Harry”, the older man. Lessing reveals here that this woman couldn’t care less of these men and their attitude towards her. Her boldness in ignoring their catcalls, and not being intimidated seemed to irritate them all the more. I believe these men could not accept the fact that a woman should not be the way she was, all hard and cold in her character, somewhat like a man. To them a woman is one who is weak, demure, decent and dependable. Furthermore her ignoring them only reflected on themselves – they were the ones who were acting like fools and they would have felt embarrassed. Again their chauvinistic narrow-mindedness comes into play here. Ironically Harry, the older man, who seemed to be the most rational one, joined forces with his colleague to make a fool of himself. Why?? I believe he didn’t want to be left out being a ‘man’ and doing what a macho man does like the others.

Paragraph 3 (lines 10 – 15)

Here a conversation takes place between the men, in which they are angry and presumptuous. There are a few issues here.

1. Tom thinks that the woman should ask them over. Why does he say this? Tom thinks that this woman is doing what she is doing to get some attention. I also believe that Tom feels special because he believes that he had given her the attention that she needed. This act clearly shows that Tom had totally invaded her privacy in his mind. She had become ‘his’.

2. Harry reminds Stanley : “If she’s married, her old man wouldn’t like that “ he says. The issue here is that Harry is being bias, he favors what her imaginary husband would have thought rather than the woman herself. He is in a way judging her too without knowing who and what she is all about.

3. Stanley is really vicious for a man. He is the most chauvinistic and narrow-minded of the three. He is totally biased in his judgements against the woman on the roof in all aspects. In this paragraph he answers Harry “if my wife lay about like that, for everyone to see, I’d soon stop her”.

a. Stanley gives us an impression that he is in control of his wife. Probably he is a domineering abusive sort of husband too. There is no indication that his wife has her own mind or freedom to do something she wants to, we see this when he says ‘ I’d soon stop her’ giving her no choice at all.

b. Secondly he somehow has made up his mind about the woman on the roof, that she was not the same class as his wife. He thinks that she is a cheap woman, just because she is the way she is. He calls her “Bitch” in the first line of the paragraph.

4. Harry further says to Stanley about his wife “ How do you know, perhaps she’s sunning herself at this very moment?” and to this Stanley replies “ Not a chance, not on our roof’. On the other hand Stanley may have very high regards for his wife. Probably he knows that she is not a woman who would expose herself in public like the woman on top of the roof. She could be a decent, conservative, sweet woman whom he had loved and come to know. Perhaps he knew that she couldn’t possibly be a hard, cold and independent woman.

Paragraph 4 (line 15 to line 20)

There was a heat wave on this day, and the men were advised not to work on the roof but they decided against that. There were more people sunbathing, clothed people but the woman on the roof remained naked except for her briefs. In this paragraph, Tom’s imagination is building up. He had imagined that he was close to her, close enough to touch her ‘Tom imagined himself at work on the crane, adjusting the arm to swing over and pick her up and swing her back across the sky to drop her near him’. Just after this imagination, he and Stanley whistles at her but all she does was to look up at them coolly and remotely and gets back to her reading. At this point Stanley is raged at her non reaction and continues to whistle and whistle but Tom had stopped. He stood beside Stanley, exited, grinning; but felt as if he were saying to the woman: Don’t associate me with him, for his grin was apologetic. Why the disassociation we may ask? Tom is trying to portray that he is not the bad guy here but someone who is on her side. He seemingly wants to please her. He has made up in his mind that the so called relationship he had with her in his mind was romantic. But unfortunately for him his colleague Stanley has become angrier than ever with the woman as he says “ I ve got a good mind to report her to the police! “ Just because she was sunbathing semi nude on her roof. Well the two other men blamed the whole incident on the weather, the heat which apparently got to all of the three of them, except for the woman on the roof, who seems to be enjoying it the most. Perhaps this is symbolic as it speaks of the strength of this woman, in standing the heat and not being agitated by it, compared to those men. It also speaks about how the woman’s non-reaction is beginning to break the unity of the men. The men they were friends but she seems to have had a special effect on Tom that he now, wanted to be seen by her as an individual, not as a group one of the ‘bad’ guys.

Paragraph 5 (line 20 to line 30)

Tom seems to have ‘begun’ living with this woman in his mind. He had even narrowed down her character and had imagined how it would be to be with her physically, thinking that she would accept and appreciate him. The fact that he created an image of her that was not real, dreaming about her being a certain way or behaving a certain way made her real to him. But it was all in the mind. For the woman, it was all in the mind, too. If she choose to let herself be aggravated by sexist and domineering and rude men. But in this case, she did not allow it. What the woman had could be interpreted as emotionless. No assertion/expression/obvious action taken but I suspect there is more --- the author seems to be pointing the way to an 'ease' with the world and perhaps a contentment with the Self that is not controlled/influenced by the external circumstances.

Paragraph 6 (line 31 to 35)

Tom seems to have made up his mind about meeting this woman on the roof. He thinks that she would be just as interested in him as he was. He also keeps thinking that somehow he is “protecting” her from Stanley or Harry and she ought to be ‘grateful’ to him for this protection.

The next day the three men were offered tea by one of the tenants in the building. The tenant, Mrs Pritchett was a smart blonde, of about thirty, she had an eye for the handsome sharp eyed Stanley and the two teased each other while Harry sat in the corner, watching indulgent, though his expression reminded Stanley that he was married. And young Tom felt envious of Stanley’s ease in badinage: felt, too, that Stanley’s getting off with Mrs Pritchett left his romance with the woman on the roof safe and intact.

Here we find two things happening :-

a) Harry, seems to act like Stanley’s guardian, giving Stanley expressions reminding him he was married. Harry’s chauvinistic character comes into play here.

b) Tom on the other hand, feels envious of Stanley because of the easy conversation he is able to have with the woman. Tom also seems to be assured that this would lay Stanley of his woman on the roof. Again Tom is in his own world somewhere, assuming and creating a bond of relationship with this unknown woman without her being involved.

Paragraph 7 (Line 40-50)

The paragraph begins with the tormenting heat aggravating the three men. Furthermore they are resentful of the woman on the roof who seems to be so ease with it. Stanley in this instant is the angriest, he swears at the management for having them to work in the heat. At the same time, Stanley goes on to let out a shrill whistle at the woman. The other two just watched her, they couldn’t see anything but her head and a bit of her brown shoulders. Stanley at this point whistles again but accompanies it with yelling, screaming and stomping his feet as if he were very mad with her. Inspite of this, the woman did not budge. Could it be that due to her non-response the men only aggravate the situation or issue and impose even more stress upon themselves? In this case, her transcended attitude is an advantage. She is not affected by the whole scenario, but they sure are.

The two men, Harry and Tom try to calm Stanley down. They understand that his anger is directed towards the heat and not the woman. They started packing then and there whilst calling out to Stanley and told him that they would tell Matthew, the project foreman that it was just too hot for them to work. It says here that Harry was aggrieved, over the whole matter. It is also mentioned that ‘he was a man who was never at loss, suddenly sounded off balance’. Here we see that Harry’s confidence has begun to break. Is it the heat or the woman’s effect on his friends?? As they all packed to leave, Tom in his mind said ‘Wait for me, wait, I am coming.” At that moment, Stanley announces that he was going home. He is apparently suffering from sunstroke. Harry had left to look for the site foreman. Tom proceeded to slip into the building where the woman laid sunbathing. Upon his coming, she sat up, pushing back her black hair with both hands. The scarf across her breasts bound them tight, and brown flesh bulged around it. Her legs were brown and smooth. She stared at him in silence. The boy stood ginning, foolish, claiming the tenderness he expected from her. ‘What do you want?” she asked. “ I ….I came to ….make your acquaintance,” he stammered, grinning pleading with her.

Paragraph 8 (Line 50-60)

It was obvious that Tom was not exactly confident of this meeting. He was excited, perhaps shy too but the woman’s reaction was just the same, emotionless. She without a word lay down on her brown blanket, ignoring him. He tries to make conversation with her but to no avail. Her silence caused panic in him. He remembered how he had imagined her to be, loving and kind towards him but then she was just the opposite of what he had imagined she would be. Tom again tries to make conversation with her but he fails again only this time the woman tells him “ if you get a kick out of seeing women in bikinis, why don’t you take a sixpenny bus ride to the Lido? You’d see dozens of them, without all this mountaineering.” I believe her statement would have broken his heart, the author wrote “she hadn’t understood him. He felt her unfairness pale him. He stammered: ‘But I like you, I’ve been watching you and……” At this point she thanked him and went back to what she was doing before without any emotion. She just laid there. Tom decides that he would stand there, thinking that by doing that she would have to say something, but she doesn’t, she had completely shut him out. Minutes passed and there was no sign of anything in her, except in the tension of her back, her thighs, her arms – the tension of waiting for him to go.

At this juncture Tom looked up to the sky, and then to the roof where he and his colleagues had been earlier, almost indignantly blaming the heat and his management for how he was feeling at that moment. He was angry because the woman did not turn out to be like what he expected in his mind to be. Perhaps he was humiliated and ashamed as well that she couldn’t care at all for him, his presence there. Which I am sure made him feel really small. Tom noticed that she still hadn’t moved. A bit of the hot wind blew her black hair softly; it shone and was iridescent, brought his mind back to the scene when he had stroked it last nite.

Paragraph 9 (Line 60 to the end)

Tom moved along finally and he did this because he had began to resent her. He got drunk to later, in hatred of her. Tom’s attitude is truly chauvinistic here. He begins to resent the woman just because the fantasies in his mind did not come true. He proceeds to get ‘drunk’ in hatred of her. I mean he is not only chauvinistic but childish. It was not the woman who invited him to her, it was he who went to her boldly thinking she would reciprocate. When he awoke the next day, the sky was grey. He looked at it and thought ‘ Well, that’s fixed you, has’nt it now? That fixed you good and proper.”
I feel Tom is being very childish, not to mention chauvinistic when he says the last line, its as though he is saying, “look at you now, without the sun, the heat, you are powerless over us. Its only when the sun is out, you can expose yourself and create in us the desire for you and make us feel weak! And now you can do nothing to us and that serves you right!”

My conclusion of the story is that the men were expressing their anger towards the woman without any base. They blamed her for the attention that they didn’t receive from her. They also blamed her entirely for being a public nuisance. Tom resented her for being emotionless, merciless towards his feelings. They seemed to have gone through so much and it was all because of her.

Lessing’s Woman on the Roof has transcended beyond the heat and the public harassment just because of her sun-bathing hobby. She had unfailingly moved the men with her emotionless state not to mention aggravated them and also changed their perception of one another at one point.

I suppose this is what I would call the mild-mannered version of Feminism. Feminism is often seen as man-hunting, bra-burning and declaring gender wars. But the way the woman on the roof does it, brings about change in society, it educates the society to move on to a higher way of fighting for their rights, just like Gandhi in his passive fight against the British for independence for his country. Woman on the Roof shows us the outcome of Sufism on Lessing which she advocated. To put it simply “be in the world but not of it’.

I’d like to end this explication with an excerpt I found on the internet written by an unknown person on Transcendence.

“To move into transcendence, you’ve got to move into a new kind of madness that bucks the entire system that you’ve been conditioned to accept. As I repeatedly say - and we need to hear it a thousand and one times and then another thousand and one times until we own it - society doesn’t exist. I’ve never met a society. I’ve only met individuals.

But society, through education, has taught you to love your mother, to love your father, to love your teachers, your brother, your sister, but never have you been taught to love yourself. Never have you been taught to accept your essential nature as a lover. And I can tell you that until you do this, never will you truly love another.”

Card Notes

Plot
Three men working on a roof, try to get the attention of a woman who is sunbathing on the other side of the roof, only to be disappointed by her. She ignores them and behaves as if they didn’t, exist which in turn causes resentment and anger within them.

Setting
Perhaps during a really hot summer season up on a rooftop of a condominium.

Conflict
The men are disturbed by the fact that the woman on the roof could effect their lives by her non-reaction towards their macho attitude.
Climax
When Tom meets with the woman on the roof to express his feelings to her but she has no reaction whatsoever by his actions.

Characterization
Harry
Tom
Stanley
Woman on The Roof – flat character

Symbols
Red bikini scarf & pants
The woman was smoking

Thesis Statement
Three chauvinistic construction men are disappointed and end up in resentment towards the non-bothered attitude of a independent woman who is sunbathing on a rooftop beside the roof that they are working on.