From Pain to Freedom: The Use of Setting in Doris Lessing's "To Room 19"
Susan Rawling, the main character in Doris Lessing's short story "To Room 19", fights against her inner emptiness and the roles she is supposed to play as a mother, a wife, and a house manager. This painful battle leads her to an utterly denying attitude towards her "intelligent" marriage and domestic life. In order to express this psychological process, Lessing progressively describes the different views the character has of her surroundings - such as the starkness of her white house, the big and "wild" garden, and finally "Room 19" to demonstrate how these settings influence her troublesome emotional status.
At the onset of the story, Susan Rawling lives in a large, white, and gardened house. …
