POLITICIZING THE PERSONAL: DORIS LESSING’S “TO ROOM NINETEEN” AND “HOW I FINALLY LOST MY HEART” AS FICTIONAL VERSIONS OF SECOND WAVE FEMINISM’S SLOGAN

Abstract

This article aims to show that although Doris Lessing rejects the relatively narrow categorisation of her writing as “feminist”, the two short stories she wrote in 1963, “To Room Nineteen” and “How I Finally Lost My Heart”, make the claims of second wave feminism visible. As they illustrate a wholistic attitude that sees human beings beyond labels, the stories’ emphasis on the need to bridge the artificial gap between public and private realms supports the second wave feminism’s slogan: “The personal is political!” The article argues that as social constructs that conceptualize different realms of everyday life, public and private spaces are understood as gendered, therefore a separation between them is part of a patriarchal political structure that imposes a restriction on women’s personal lives. As a writer who problematizes artificial divides in social life, Doris Lessing clearly imbues her works with this consciousness that goes hand in hand with the central discussions of second wave feminism’s consciousness raising groups.