New Critical Perspectives on Ageing Women in the Writings of Doris Lessing

This book is the fruit of a commitment to the study of Doris Lessing’s literature which dates back to 2001, when I completed my PhD thesis on what I then called the narrative produced by Lessing (Kermanshah, Iran, 1919-London, 2013) in her mature years. The main focus of that study was a portion of Lessing’s writings published between 1985 and 1999, a period in which she wrote texts of a diverse nature, including novels, autobiographical works, essays and newspaper articles. The research was set in the European context, in particular during the second half of the twentieth century, as this was the period when Lessing began her writing career. She became an established writer in the 1950s and contributed a distinctive perspective on various issues that would mark not only the European but also the global context, in connection with politics, violence, culture and discrimination on age grounds, among other aspects. The research I later conducted encompassed analyses of Lessing’s literary works along with those of her contemporaries, including some younger women writers whose works were largely written in English. The critical approaches that have shaped my research process are gender and cultural studies concerning literature written by women from the 1950s to the present day. The various novels, plays and poetic production which I have analysed were set in England, a location with which Lessing was closely acquainted.

Revisiting Lessing’s texts now, a decade and a year recently past her death, gaining insight into fresh viewpoints and novel interpretations of her works, remains relevant to today’s world. From my perspective, engaging with Lessing’s body of work demands a combination of humility and unwavering dedication, acknowledging its multifaceted nature and the plethora of avenues available for exploration. This rich expanse means that fresh perspectives can be contributed to the analysis of her writings. The aspiration to expand and enhance the existing research at this stage stems from a dual source. First, it arises from a steadfast commitment to delve into the intricacies of Lessing’s literary production. Second, I would like to offer in this book a critical re-reading of old age and the ageing processes of women between the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century as a literary subject, which I trust will contribute to broadening the reader’s gaze and knowledge of Lessing. My purpose is also based on the need to critically redefine the meaning of some aspects of her work from the perspective of the writing of the self that emerged in the literary context of European post-modernity, as an essential legacy to better understand the signs of our time. To this end, I will rely on the critical corpus of Lessing’s writings, made up of both classic and recent texts, each with its wealth of interesting properties and potential for further readings. Without attempting to reach fixed conclusions, I will provide some critical reflections on the issue at hand, taking into account Adrian Scribano and Angélica De Sena’s argument that research may unveil ‘los propios temores en tanto hay un mostrarse de [la] investigador[a], asumiendo que las críticas teóricas y metodológicas que pretenden poner un dique a lo afectivo son también un modo de “protección” a la aparición de las vivencias [de esta]’ [one’s fears, insofar as researchers become somewhat exposed, well aware that the theoretical and methodological critiques that aim to block the emotional component are also a form of ‘protection’ from the emergence of their own experiences] (2009: 8).¹ This refers to the research methodology that not only records and bears witness to observations, readings and auditory experiences but also actively engages with the subject of study. This engagement is achieved by fostering reflection and then moving further to take action on the subject of study (Scribano and De Sena 2009: 8).

There is a vast critical literature on Lessing’s work. Critics have recognized this phenomenon over time, as the intricate array of themes within Lessing’s writings can be interpreted from various perspectives. This enables scholars to capture fleeting insights and analyse them using different approaches. Some critical contributions have dealt with most, if not almost all, of the concerns in Lessing’s extensive and varied oeuvre. These include, among others, the lack of communication between people; the individual loneliness that haunts men and women, who have been marked, generation after generation, by the traces of a violent past in Europe; the lives of women, the lack of opportunities, their aspirations and their struggle to achieve them as social subjects with full rights who seek to have free lives and be in control of their decisions and their destinies; the need to review the personal and collective trajectory after having experienced traumatic events that have left their mark on the emotional landscape of survivors; the role of culture, its representatives and cultural institutions; and the place of elderly people in Western societies. Contemporary literary criticism has broken down barriers and introduced approaches to literary works that have included the sociological, historical and philosophical, among others. Throughout her career as a writer, Lessing reconstructed the lives of people whose life experiences were marked by a violent collective history that began with the events leading up to the First World War. As Ratna Raman put it, Lessing invested her creative energy in characters who felt confused and uncertain about the world they inhabited (Raman 2021: 168). Bearing in mind the trend towards a multicultural neoliberal society that began at the end of the twentieth century and which had historical milestones including the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the establishment of a global capitalist market and, more recently, the Russia-initiated conflict against Ukraine, there is an urgent need for an ethical reflection on the kind of society we want for the future. As Ricardo Mazzeo pointed out in a conversation with Zygmunt Bauman (2013), societies today harbour extremely diverse feelings about people considered different, such as migrants and refugees, including mixophilia (considering interaction with foreigners to be rich and stimulating) and mixophobia (fear of mixing with foreigners). This applies to the reactions and sentiments experienced by different social groups towards other so-called minority groups, such as indigenous populations. Respect for and recognition of diversity can be advocated through literature as a cultural treasure to be cherished by all. This is a challenge for society, as it calls for moving beyond tolerance towards full solidarity between communities (Bauman 2013) and the promotion of more inclusive attitudes and behaviours (Cala, Soriano and López-Martínez 2018; Leyra Fatou and Roldán García 2013).

Lessing’s literary contributions can play a pivotal role in understanding these pressing contemporary societal issues. In her texts, the course of history is part of a process determined by the underlying logics of the human condition (Brazil, Sergeant and Sperlinger 2016). This notion is based on the Marxist idea of meaningful resistance to colonialism and racism that permeates Lessing’s work. At this point in history, faced with the challenges of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, we need to reconsider who we were in the past in order to understand who we are now. Knowledge of common history and literature provide essential support in this endeavour. For this reason, the starting point of this book is consistent with the view argued by Daniela Fumis (2022), whereby ‘si la ancianidad se ancla en la declinación biológica, la vejez se sustenta en un imaginario nutrido de representaciones que la literatura logra desmontar a fin de revelar la potencia creativa del destiempo’ [if old age is anchored in biological decline, elderliness is sustained by an imaginary nourished by representations that literature manages to dismantle in order to reveal the creative power of untimeliness]. This leads to the contradiction that represents the complex reality of old age and ageing. Drawing on the work of Georges Minois (1989), Fumis advocated that old age has been a contradictory space from the time of primitive societies and that, over time, writing overthrew the store of memory that had traditionally been guarded by the elderly. We should remain mindful of the fact that shifts in context clearly influence the formation of identity or identities among older individuals. Therefore, literature possesses the capacity to foster a more emancipatory perspective on old age and the ageing process, particularly during the transition from the late twentieth century to the twenty-first century. Indeed, when re-examining Lessing’s literary works, particularly those produced during her later years, it makes sense to consider literature as a conduit of culture. This approach aids in gaining a deeper understanding of the human experience, treating literature as an experimental ground for exploring what is feasible, thus fostering an increased awareness of the cultural backdrop that influenced each writer’s existence.

This book uses some of Lessing’s fictional texts as a springboard for making new contributions to the study of the intersections between literature and culture in the final years of the twentieth century and the first few of the current one. The reading of Lessing’s fiction invites a critical political, cultural and ethical reflection on ageing, in the case in point, and more specifically, on the ageing of women, given that ‘históricamente el feminismo académico ha prestado poca atención al edadismo, a las relaciones de edad y a la vejez en sí misma’ [historically, academic feminism has paid little attention to ageism, age relations and old age itself] (Freixas 2008: 44; Venn, Davidson and Arber 2011: 71). Feminist epistemologies have highlighted the value of women’s experiences which are often silenced in mainstream accounts of realities. What this means in practice is valuing the everyday and every night lived realities of women, which means paying attention to women ‘situated outside rather than within the relations of ruling’ (Smith 1987: 46). As Begoña Leyra, Fatou and Elena Roldán noted, female ageing has more negative connotations than male ageing (2013: 105–106). Susan Sontag had previously referred to this when she identified the different treatment given to the notion of ageing as applied to men and women (1972: 200). When feminist authors Sontag, Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan questioned the failure to consider the intersection between age and gender, they enabled these intersecting cultural categories to facilitate new social and cultural markers of challenge to be used in women’s and gender studies (Haring and Maierhofer 2023: 158). In contrast to the normative image of an overvalued perennial youth (Woodward 1999), Greer studied the process of menopause as a rite of passage and empowerment for women. However, as raised by Nicole Haring and Roberta Maierhofer (2023), studies on anocriticism and the intersection between gender and age are still scarce. Worthy of note are those by Kathleen Woodward (1999) and Sally Chivers (2003), as pioneering authors in this type of studies, recently furthered by the contributions of Josep M. Armengol (2018) and Linda M. Hess (2019), which shows a continued interest in gender and age research (Maierhofer 2019: 158). Lessing, an observer of old age, especially of female old age, brought together a number of factors in the narrative produced in her later years that serve to reflect on the complexity of older women’s lives, their acquiescence or disagreement with social norms about the preservation of youth, and how to negotiate the effects of the passage of time. A number of elements that are present in Lessing’s texts on old age can serve as indicators of the well-being or ill-being of this diverse human group, including health, illness, emotions, quality of life, nature of relationships and ties, financial situation, poverty, place of residence, neighbourliness, public policies and support for extended independent living at home. It is worth recalling that in the 1980s Lessing witnessed what historians have described as the prelude to the slimming down of the public policies that had been implemented since the end of the Second World War, accompanied by a gradual reduction in UK pensions (Thane 2006: 24). According to Pat Thane, in the second half of the twentieth century, a period when people were ‘aging’ later than ever before, their social and economic role seemed to diminish (2006: 24).

For all these reasons, in this book I turn to Lessing’s mature work to learn more about the notion of female old age prevalent in the recent decades. With the novels The Diary of a Good Neighbour, If the Old Could and Love, Again, Lessing expanded the field of knowledge of a social segment made invisible by age and gender, exploring and disseminating diverse experiences of women’s ageing process in the English-speaking context.² The choice of old age as the subject of this book is in alignment with the argument put forward by Fidel Molina-Luque, Nuria Casado and Paquita Sanvicen-Torné (2018: 46) that the image of old age associated with physical and psychological decline has been shifted to portray a different model whereby ageing and old age is a process in the human life cycle just like any other, but important in itself (Katz 2009).

Human beings’ preoccupation with prolonging life in the face of death has been a constant throughout history. Life expectancy at birth has increased globally in recent years for both women and men. This must be seen as a social breakthrough (Puyol 2021) resulting from two components of the demographic transition, namely, low birth rate and low mortality. This involves both a decrease in youth and young adult population. Nevertheless, longevity rates are not equal for all social and economic groups. World Health Organisation (WHO) data (2020) showed that the ageing population process occurs beyond borders, affecting all regions of the world in a sustained and increasing way: