An interesting shortstory worth reading by all people, mainly because of the femanistic point of view. It is not the best thing I ever read, and even if it is not hard to read it has a deeper meaning to it.I believe the story is a metaphor for the contemporary society. The fact that a woman should get married and have children, and live in a beautiful house is what is expected of a woman. But this might not be right for all women. The protagonist is just a product of society. She does everything to do things the right way, to be accepted, but instead she becomes deeply unhappy because she do not allow herself to have any feelings.I find the room, to which she escapes to be alone, represents the issue that girls at this time did not have a room of their own while the boys often had it. They lacked the freedom to close their door and be alone and do what ever they liked in secret. Due to this they had less opportunity to think and explore themselves, and were not for example able to write literaure in the same extent as the boys. What is realy remarkleble about this story is that it brings up subjects of discussions that, even today for many people, are considered better left alone. Even if many women today have the chanse to work and to educate, they never admit that marriage and children are not everything. Many women need more than just a family, they need to explore themselves in order to be truly happy. But society demands a woman to be the one taking care of the children and the hosehold, while the men mostly are suppose to bring the money and put food on the table. Since this is still common in todays society, the "To Room Nineteen" is still very relevant.
I can't believe this woman won the Nobel Prize and I can't find an image for this collection of her stories! What's up with that??? I prefer Lessing's novels to her stories but I picked this up from the library in order to read To Room 19. I recently read Michael Cunningham's The Hours and someone on this board recommended I read this Lessing story. While The Hours is obviously an ode to Mrs. Dalloway, it gives an equal bow to Ms. Lessing's story To Room 19. I think what gives Lessing's story such brillance is the brutal honesty on relationships that people prefer not to think about. We all want to think our relationships will be Happily-Ever- After but Lessing reminds us that this is rarely the case. Life and relationships are messy and women typically get the short end of the stick. I didn't have time to read all the stories in this collection but To Room 19 is one I highly recommend.
What do You think about To Room Nineteen (1994)?
These are my thoughts on the title story only.Susan Rawlings is married to a man she has loved, has four beloved children, is financially comfortable, and seeks a centre and purpose for her life. (view spoiler)[Increasingly she slides into mental illness as her emotional and intellectual life is limited by the stultifying existence of a housewife. She yearns for 'freedom' and can only satisfy her need by renting a seedy hotel room to sit in for seven hours a day doing nothing at all. Finally, having falsely admitted to her husband that she is having an affair and receiving a reciprocal (true) confession, she returns to the room and ends her life. (hide spoiler)]
—Zanna
I was expecting something more realistic considering we're talking about an "intelligent" marriage. I thought that would be their Achilles heel... that their marriage would die of boredom, of unexpressed emotion, or something of the sort, stuff that actually happens in the real world. The way the story opened up, it did seem like it was taking that route. They had to be perfectly "rational" in everything, very left-brained, clinical, methodical, no room for emotion. I was almost certain that wou
—Lady Jane
