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    A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts"
    A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts"
    A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts"
    Ebook40 pages24 minutes

    A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535816892
    A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "A Mild Attack of Locusts" - Gale

      08

      A Mild Attack of Locusts

      Doris Lessing

      1955

      Introduction

      Doris Lessing's short story A Mild Attack of Locusts tells of Africa's vast open spaces. The setting makes one feel insignificant in relation to the land and the power of nature, as reflected in the experience of the protagonist, Margaret. Through the eyes of Margaret, Lessing absorbs the reader in the experience of helplessness, as a seemingly unending swarm of locusts blackens the skies as far as Margaret can see, devouring the crops that she and her husband, Richard, depend upon for a living. Margaret and Richard's sense of devastation and feelings of hopelessness resonate through the story. But the story is about more than devastation. There is a robust and prevalent undercurrent in this story that is portrayed through the locusts, which stand as a metaphor for the power of nature. What happens, the author asks through this story, when people are forced to face this power?

      Lessing's A Mild Attack of Locusts was first published in 1955 in the New Yorker magazine and was later published in Lessing's collection of short stories The Habit of Loving in 1957. This short story is also included in Lessing's short story collection African Stories (1981).

      Author Biography

      Lessing was born Doris May Tayler on October 22, 1919, in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran) to British parents, Emily Maude McVeagh and Alfred Cook Tayler. When Lessing was six, her father decided to invest in land in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in Africa. He wanted to try his hand at farming, which was reputed to be a good investment. The family tried to raise maize (corn) on the thousand-acre farm but failed to make the money they had envisioned. Although the experience was not financially rewarding, living in the natural setting of the farm became a strong influence on Lessing. The natural world and her experiences in Africa are present in many of Lessing's stories.

      Lessing attended a convent school until she was thirteen. After that, she escaped the rather harsh conditions of farm life by developing a voracious appetite for books, mostly novels written by late nineteenth-century Russian, French, and English authors. At the age of fifteen, Lessing's parents sent her to a family in South Africa, where she worked as a nanny. Recognizing Lessing's intellectual curiosity, the family supplied Lessing with different kinds of reading material. They helped to broaden her education by providing her with books on politics and sociology. It was during this time that Lessing also began her first attempts at writing.

      In 1937, Lessing moved to Salisbury (which was then capital of Rhodesia), where she took a clerical position. That same year, Lessing married Frank Wisdom and shortly afterward found herself the mother of

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