Doris Lessing - Para 2

Question 1

Furthermore, Lessing uses her logic and rationality to point out that ?

Answer 1

only equality of access to education and books will ensure the continuance of the power for literature and reading to help us ‘recreate’ ourselves through stories.

Question 2

Lessing advocates ?

Answer 2

such concerns which fuelled her work throughout her career

Question 3

In the conclusion, Lessing describes ?

Answer 3

an African woman living in poverty who finds hope in a segment of novel she reads in an Indian store.

Question 4

The repetition and high modality of ?

Answer 4

“will” highlights the optimism the novel instilled, “My children will be clever…I will take them to the library…they will go to school, and they will be teachers…”.

Question 5

Such optimism and hope for humanity to ‘recreate’ themselves is reflected by ?

Answer 5

Lessing through the motif of the hunger for learning and the symbolic metaphor of “phoenix”, “The storyteller is deep inside every one of us…it is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix that represents us at our best, and at our most creative”.

Question 6

what is reflected in the phoenix quote?

Answer 6

Lessing’s core message of how books and literature play a powerful and vital role in society

Question 7

Such message of the power of literature is similar to ?

Answer 7

Margaret Atwood’s speech, ‘Spotty Handed Villainesses” by acknowledging that ill-portayed female characters in diction are reflective of society’s perception of women.

Question 8

Hence, Lessing was able provoke her audience to consider ?

Answer 8

the value of literature and the potential for humanity to reinvent themselves for equity and a better future.

Question 9

Nelson Mandela?

Answer 9

“education is the most powerful tool which you can use to transform the world” resonated very strongly with me.