From Pain To Freedom: The Use Of Setting In Doris Lessing’s “To Room 19”

At the onset of the story, Susan Rawling lives in a large, white, and gardened house. Although one may possibly infer her husband and she lead a wealthy life and that their house is likely to be comfortable, scarcely can the reader find any detailed description of both the house and the furniture this house is bound to have inside. Along the story, many are the passages where the reader can clearly perceive that this is an intelligently organized structure managed mainly by her. Everything is perfect, “[t]hey had everything they had wanted and had planned for. And yet...” (p. 666). At a certain moment

Aiming to forget about herself and where she comes from, she decides to have a place “where she could go and sit, by herself, no one knowing where she was” (p. 674). Then, she starts to isolate herself in a hotel room – room 19 – so as to unchain herself from her duties as Mrs. Rawlings. There, at last, Susan can have a setting of her own where she does not have to think about anything, but only observe the time passing by, with neither past nor future. She is totally empty there, “feeling emptiness run deliciously through her veins like the movement of her blood” (p. 6 80). These journeys, which range from one to five times a week, last (for) a year. These days of loneliness enable Susan to “play her part” as a mother and wife easily since she is not Mrs. Rawlings anymore, she is an impostor, completely detached from this family. Susan, “(...) or the being who answered so readily and improbably to the name of Susan, was not there: she was in Fred’s hotel, in Paddington, waiting for the easing ours of solitude to begin” (p. 680).

There as Susan watches the river passing among the lively trees, she hopes to be really alone so that she can look for her inner self. However, this search arises a dubious feeling, since she is eager to encounter herself but she feels that encountering herself means encountering the demon – a wild and “unintelligent” side of her. Despite being terrified of it she still visits the garden once in a while in search for some

Some topics in this essay:
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