Ill Chapter Five

OUTER SPACE FANTASY I: SHIKASTA AND THE MARRIAGES BETWEEN ZONES THREE, FOUR AND FIVE

Despite the direction the earlier like Briefing and Memoirs had taken, Lessing's Canopus in Arqos series was a surprise to readers and critics who had fond memories of Lessing the realist novelist. Initially, Lessing thought that Shikasta would be "a single self-contained book" (Shikasta. 1979:IX). But as she wrote, she was "invaded with other ideas, for other books" (Shikasta. 1979: IX) because it was a form that allowed her to be as experimental or as traditional as she liked. Shikasta certainly is experimental. It deals with the history of the human race—from its origins to its possible end—from a 's perspective. Marriages is less ambitious and more traditional because it is about the struggles between men and women, and the dimensions of sex and love "put through a space transformer" (Rowe, 1982:192) .

This chapter attempts a study of these two novels, keeping in mind the hypothesis of fantasy formulated earlier.

SHIKASTA

Shikasta (1979) fictionalizes a galactic history and an

epochal overview of earth's history. Much of it focuses on the 112 wretched present and near future. It documents our slide into pollution, starvation, and near extinction. But Shikasta is also about the past. In the beginning, Rohanda (earth) is colonized by the two galactic empires—Canopus and . Canopus helps form humanity by stepping up the process of evolution through introducing a new species from another planet. This species(the giants) adapts very well to Rohanda and the giants' mental powers improve with their stay at Rohanda. The natives too evolve rapidly and soon conditions on Rohanda are right for the "Lock" to take place. When the Lock took place the powers, vibrations (whatever word you like, since all are inaccurate and approximate), of Rohanda were fused with Canopus, and through Canopus with its subsidiaries, planets, and stars. Canopean strengths were beamed continually back into Rohanda. Rohanda's new, always deepening strengths were beamed continually back at Canopus. But these interchanges of substance were infinitely varied and variable (1979:51) .

Thus the relationship was useful to both Canopus and Shikasta. The maintenance of the Lock, however, depended on continuous care. Mathematical cities were built which were in harmony with

the vibrations of Canopus and there were stones that had to be

continually realigned.

What the natives were being taught was the science of maintaining contact at 113 all times with Canopus: of keeping contact with their Mother, their Maintainer, their Friend and what they called God, the divine, (1979:40). For nearly ten thousand years Rohanda enjoyed success and development. However, a shift in stellar alignments changes all this. The Lock weakens and Shammat (another rival galactic empire) takes advantage of this by tapping the emanations from Rohanda. Things slowly but surely deteriorate at Rohanda (now renamed Shikasta), so much so that some of the giants refuse to obey the advice of Canopus. The giants are to be transported to other planets but some refuse to leave; Canopus does not force them to leave. The natives forget most of the things they have learnt and do not live in harmony with each other any longer. They plunder, loot, and kill at random. However, unlike Sirius, Canopus does not abandon Rohanda. Throughout history, Canopean agents are sent to help Shikastans but they find helping the Shikastana in an increasingly difficult task. In fact, service to Shikasta later becomes voluntary.

Lessing's main narrator is Johor, a Canopean expert in

Shikastan affairs. But since the book is a "compilation of

documents selected to offer a very general picture of Shikasta for the use of first year students of Canopean colonial Rule"

(1979:12), we also have (besides the reports of Johor and the other 114 agents) summaries of the periods of earth's history from a Canpean perspective. Additional explanatory information is provided by the archivists themselves, on various subjects like the generation gap and the religions of Shikasta by letters of various individuals; by reports on individuals whom the Canopeans helped; and by a journal kept by Rachel Sherban (Johor's sister in his surfacing during Shikasta's last days) about their family and the various things that Johor (George) does which she cannot understand. This journal also gives us an accurate and vivid picture of the world's condition just before the nuclear holocaust. Thus, Lessing uses different perspective, different voices, different angles and different texture to explore her ideas. Though Lessing is writing about a very familiar topic, she has transformed it by using another vantage point—that of the Canopean archivists. But she does not always maintain the archivist's cool when it comes to certain issues. She settles old scores—with the tyranny of ideology, colonial oppression, the responsibility of the Whites for the present condition of the world, especially the Third World, power politics, and the threat of nuclear war.

Nor does her use of the Canopean perspective (with its overview that stretches into aeons) negate history. She is still as socially aware as she was before and gives us penetrating analyses of the present condition of the world. For instance,

Lessing points out that our system of economic production depends 115 on the economic imperative "thou shalt consume" (1979:176) every conceivable kind of goods. Everywhere we turn, we see advertisements urging us to by more, consume more. To sell their products, manufacturers effectively exploit man's tendency to keep up with the Joneses. Implicit in every advertisement is the message that if you buy this product you will be in style and in comfort, lovable and desirable. The contrast between the advertiser's interpretation of the world and the world's actual condition is stark. This is evident in TV programmes, magazines, and newspapers where all events are equally important, whether it is a war, a game, a fashion show, or a famine or the weather. John Berger in his book Wavs of Seeing (1972:153) also discusses this. He points out that through publicity, events are made "eventless". Publicity is so effective that we learn to forget the atrocities of "War. Civil War. Murder. Torture. Exploitation. Oppression and Suppression" (1979:12) and continue to believe that on the "; whole all is well. Scathing in her rebuke both of the Left and the Capitalist way of life, Lessing points out how each is similar to the other. Both have become so enormous, cumbersome and ridden with bureaucracy that nothing can be accomplished except through "the continually forming and reforming pressure groups: It is government by pressure group, administration by pressure group" (1979:162). A fact that many of us can testify to, today. Both systems spread 116 ideologies based on the suppression and oppression of differing sects, opinions, and religions: both use torture on a mass scale. Yet they see each other as enemies, a totally different, while they behave in exactly the same manner. Regardless of the ideological label attached to each they believe "that technology (is) the key to all good, and that good (is) material increase, gain, comfort, pleasure" (1979:118). Lessing points out the impossibility and futility for twentieth century man to have any faith in politics. There have been so many betrayals, disappointments, lies, shifting of loyalties, so much murdering, torture and insanity, that even fanatics know times of disbelief Science, the most recent of the religions, is also becoming increasingly loathed and distrusted. As a result of science, the earth is slowly despoiled. Minerals are ripped out, fuels wasted, soils depleted by an improvident and short-sighted agriculture. The animals and plants are slaughtered and destroyed, the seas are. filled with filth and poison and the atmosphere is polluted. But always, the propaganda machines continue to thump out their theme- -consume more, .discard more. As the twentieth century progresses we see the beliefs and ideas that supported man for centuries begin to fray and dissolve. As a result of this, man turns to all kinds of things to soften and avoid reality—drugs, alcohol, sports, pleasures of all sorts and even work.

Lessing also visualizes some of the dangerous consequences of 117 neglecting and abusing children. Like a prophet of a doom she points out the possibility of children turning to crime out of sheer boredom and as a bid to get some attention. Recent statistics confirm this tendency, especially among affluent children of the West. Lessing gives us new insights into colonialism, a dominant theme in her oeuvre. Her first . (1950), clearly articulates colonial brutality. The Children of Violence series explores this theme further, but it is in Shikasta that we find Lessing's most scathing indictment of colonialism. During "The Trial" that takes place towards the end of the book, the white races are accused of destroying and corrupting the world (1979:388). But Lessing does not condemn only the white races. Ursula Le Guin assumes that Lessing condemns only the white races when she writes that Shikasta "is full of self hatred, hatred of the white identity" (New Republic, vol. 181, No. 32. Oct. 13, 1979:32). Lessing shows that the other races are equally guilty of inhumanity to their fellowmen. This is because they have also "chosen to copy the materialism, the greed, the rapacity, of the white man's technological society" (1979:412). Lessing also looks at colonialism from the viewpoint of the colonized. She shows us the terrible consequences the colonizers will have to face if the colonized people ever get a chance to take their revenge. She captures in vivid detail their hatred, anger and contempt for the 118 colonizers. In Shikasta. we see it in the joy and pleasure the Chinese take in despoiling Europe and starving its people to death, just before the nuclear catastrophe. it is a frightening but possible picture. It is difficult, however, to push Lessing into any one position, even if this position expounds something she obviously deplores. In fact Lessing's indictment of the world today is its tendency "to put a label on a feeling, a state of mind, a thing; to find a set of words or a phrase; in short believing that to describe it is the same as understanding and experiencing it" (1971:250) . She reiterates this in all her novels and shows how compartmentalisation and labelling result in breakdown and fragmentation. Lessing in Shikasta clearly condemns colonialism, yet the relationship between Canopus and Shikasta, which is by no means negative, is that of the colonizer and the colonized. Canopus speeds up the process of evolution, introduces new species and gains from the Lock as much as Shikasta does. But this kind of colonialism does not result in any of the evils that Fanon (1950) talks about in his book The Wretched of the Earth. Before the Lock weakened, only good news came through from Rohanda. The natives and giants lived in cities "that were exact and perfect and laid down according to the Necessity" (1979:34). These cities were built in the shape of mathematical symbols. Science had even evolved a system capable of establishing even from early childhood the milieu in which a given individual needed to 119 live. The giants and natives had evolved to the adequate level, that is, to being human, the giants would leave for another task somewhere else. But the Lock weakens and Shammat takes over. The fault lies partly with Canopus: "We did not take Shammat into account" (1979:36). But if they had, they would not have been able to prevent the weakening of the Lock because it is a "catastrophic universe .... subject to sudden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms" (1979:14). Canopus is not omnipotent or omniscient. In fact, there is a very human element to Canopus whose citizens are also in the process of evolution. Their understanding of situations change as they do (1979:35) . They are subjected to universal laws and other forces and powers. For instance, Johor says, "We are all creatures of the stars and their forces, they make us, we make them, we are a part of a dance from which we by no means and not ever may consider ourselves, separate" (1979:58). So it would be a misreading of the text to see Canopus as divine or good in any conventional sense. Nor do the Canopeans advocate any religion. .Instead, the archivists point out that the religions of Shikasta are a distortion of what is left of their agent's instructions. These religions become a problem in the maintaining of Shikasta in the Canopean system. "Very often the grip a religion had on a culture, or even a whole continent, was so pervasive that our agents could make no impact there at all, but 120 had to work elsewhere where conditions were less monolithic, perhaps even—according to current ideas—primitive" (1979:145).

And even if they succeeded, the agents had to take into account the fact that even before they were dead, their instruction would have hardened into dogma, and would have become mechanical and useless.

However, they do not face this problem in the twentieth century because by then religion has lost its certainties (1979:248).

Nor are Canopeans agents perfect. They are susceptible to evil. For instance, Taufiq, forgets why he has been sent to

Shikasta and visualizes himself as "influencing things for good"

(1979:100), which was not a bad thing by ordinary standards, but for Lessing, idealists are "people who describe themselves as intending good, not self interest, at the expense of others"

(1979:100). Lessing asserts that an emotional reaction to sufferings is not a sufficient qualification for curing them.

Thus, for Lessing evil (if one may call it such) has other connotations. It is something more than mere opposition to good.

That is why the Shammatans are unlike traditional villains. Gore

Vidal in his review of Shikasta rightly remarks that the forces of good and evil portrayed here are shadowy (NYRB, Dec. 20, 1979:3).

Lessing's Shammat, he says, is a "drag" and a "bore" compared to

Milton's Lucifer.

Lessing draws on various far-ranging sources to create the history of the planet; from archaeological supposition to religious 121 history and the sacred texts of the world. However, these form only a part of the vast carpet of history and legend that Lessing weaves in Shikasta. As Ursula Le Guin points out, "the presence of mythic material in a story does not mean that the mythmaking faculty is being used (The Language of the Night. 1979:75). There is a possibility for a fantasy or story to have its plot or characters modelled upon an ancient myth; such a story does not automatically become a myth. "No mythmaking is involved; just theft" (The Language of the Night. 1979:75). For instance, Lessing presents the Old Testament stories of the tower of Babel, the"destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the call of Abraham as some of the efforts made by Canopus to maintain harmony and balance on earth after the failure of the Lock. Lessing has not "gone religious on us" (NYTBR, Nov. 4, 1979:3), though she portrays that wait for reentry into earth in Zone six. These souls are the ones who realize that their earlier life was one of self-indulgence and they wait for another chance to live more meaningful human lives. For example, one of the women characters is portrayed as losing a chance to transcend her individual because she makes escapist decisions in her former life in Shikasta. In this manner, Lessing stresses engagement with the world. In fact, excessive individualism is dubbed "the Degenerative Disease" in Shikasta. There must be a delicate balancing of social responsibility and self-interest. In 122 spite of the cosmic disalignments, humanity has the ultimate choice for good or evil. As Marsha Rowe puts it,

Lessing explores the idea of an overall pattern being possible to life—the characters are shown to have a destiny but not a fate—they are free to choose to listen to and to fulfill and inner purpose which will serve society or to fall. Therefore, whom they meet, where they are reborn, such incidents are not accidental but opportunities (1982:193).

Lessing has not lost her compassion for humanity and George

Stade's accusation that she "is filled with a glittery-eyed glee about the lot of humans" (NYTBR, Nov. 4, 1979:3) seems exaggerated especially when we read her short but brilliant portraits of individuals where she captures all the traumas and fears of twentieth century man (1979:149-246). She also looks at a very twentieth century phenomenon--terrorism--and delineates various plausible reasons as to why people, especially young people, become terrorists. She points out that at times people become terrorists not on the basis of any political or religious creed. It may be out of a craving for publicity (1979:163-166), a contempt of the world and its norms (1979:166-168), a desire to expose systems for what they are (1979:168-176), or at times, because they feel they are "not being taken seriously" (1979:182). Lessing portrays these characters with sensitivity, perception and "the authority of a

Dostoevesky" (Le Guin, New Republic, 1979:32). And even though we 123 may not like them, we feel for them and understand why they are driven to such extremes. But though life is dreadful, man's ability to survive is surprising. Lessing emphasizes this concept.

"...What courage, what tenacity is possible in a human being and therefore in us all" (1979:434). No matter what happens to him, man is always able to cope.

Forced back and back upon herself, himself, bereft of comfort, security, knowing perhaps only hunger and cold; denuded of belief in "country", "religion", "progress"—stripped of certainties... Shikastans are...reaching out with their minds to heights of courage..." (1979:250).

It is significant that at the end of this novel, human beings

are actively involved in building the cities. The cities do not

descend from heaven but are built by human hands. The image of the

city is one which has loomed large in the whole body of Lessing 's

works. In Shikasta, the city appears in three stages. Before the

Lock weakens, the city is a "perfect artefact with nothing in it

uncontrolled; considered with its inhabitants as a perfect whole"

(1979:41). Here the city presents a new variation to Lessing; it

is the prelapsarian state enjoyed before the Lock weakened. But

these cities are abandoned when the Lock falls away and the cities

which are built later are not in harmony with the inhabitants. In

fact, these cities affect the mental attitude and prejudices of the

people who live in them. After the nuclear holocaust, the Lock 124 strengthens again because of stellar alignment. Johor

(reincarnated as George Sherban), along with other Canopean agents, helps to build new cities. These cities are similar to the earlier mathematical cities with well laid out gardens. They are beautiful, but "functional" (1979:445) cities and though no one knows anything about plans or architects, the cities just take shape. "As we build, wonderful patterns appear as if our hands were being taught into a way we know nothing about" (1979:44 6). The people living in them are happy and there is now no need to "argue and argue and discus and disagree and confer and argue and fight and then kill. All that is finished, it is dead" (1979:447). This ending is similar to that of The Four Gated City except that there is no mention of mutants here. Lessing has once again reworked the concept of the apocalypse to emphasize strongly man's ability to cope and shape his future, subject to universal laws and not to the benevolence of any being. By using fantasy, Lessing has distanced reality for us and thus prompts us to view it objectively. Shikasta's space-age trappings, its beguiling story of friendly giants, and stone-built geometric cities attuned to galactic harmony is a device to present the frighteningly believable account of the catastrophic events that might befall us. The fact that these events are set only a few years in the future in no way detracts from the essential realism with which the world as we currently experience it is 125 rendered.

THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN ZONES THREE, FOUR AND FIVE

Marriages (1980) is very different from its predecessor^ Reviewers found the book "more accessible" (Cox, Library Journal. 1980:878), "finer grained and stronger than Shikasta" (Le Guin, New Republic;, 1980:34) because it is "unencumbered by metaphysical machinery" (Le Guin, 1980:35). Eric Korn considers it an "erotic novel" (TLS, 1980:520), while Nicholas Shrimpton regards it an "allegory" (New Statesman, 1980:783). According to Alice Turner, this is "the only novel in the series that a non-Lessingite might want to read" (Nation, 1982:278) . Certainly the book is a delight and Lessing herself, in an interview in 1980, considers it "a piece of cake" (NYTBR, March 30, 1980:1).

The setting in Marriages is the zones that surround Shikasta. Zone Three is a matriarchy, sensuous, sophisticated and intuitive. They can speak to animals and even send messages by tree. Al. Ith, their queen, is summoned by the unseen Providers on a task she hates. That is, she has to marry Ben Ata, the Warrior king of Zone Four which is martial, hierarchial and misogynistic. Ben Ata certainly needs Al. Ith (his country is poverty stricken and wretched) though it is not immediately clear why she needs him. They contrive to love each other, however, and gradually see what the Providers had in mind. 126

In the preface to Shikasta Lessing wrote that Marriages

"turned out to be a fable, or myth. Also oddly enough, to be more realistic" (Shikasta. 1979:8). Marriages departs from certain particulars of s^ence fiction set up in Shikasta—it does not include the galactic empires of Canopus, Sirius, and Shammat; nor does it roam over possible time. Most important, Marriages does not seem to deal with specific historical questions but is closer to myth in the way it postulates a world above time in the components of its gender plot, and in its gender archetypes. The dreamy contours of the landscapes and the formalized ballad cadence of the narrative reminds one of fairy tales (Rowe, 1982:194).

Mariette Claire also points out that whereas the narrative in

Shikasta is "authoritative," that of Marriages is "tentative and exploratory" (1984:23). In Marriages the narrative constructs not

only a narrator but also an audience and a reason for the narration

of the information given.

Our chroniclers and artists have made a great thing of this exchange between Al. Ith and the soldiers. Some of the tales begin at this point...often these pictures are titled "Al Ith Animals". Some tales tell how the soldiers try to catch the birds and the deer, and are rebuked by Al. Ith. I take the liberty of doubting whether the actual occasion impressed itself so dramatically on the soldiers, or even on Al. Ith (1980:19).

But the different zones are plausible as regions, though they are 127 described in metaphors rather than naturalistic detail. Colours, shapes and atmospheres are used as a backdrop against which the

characters are delineated by contrast (Rowe, 1982; 195) . For

instance, Lessing does not write merely that the Zone Three mountains had such and such shape. Instead, she includes the sense

of being there or the atmosphere.

With us the eye is enticed into continual movement and then is drawn back to the great snowy shapes that are shaped by the wind and the colours of skies. And the air tingles in the blood, cold and sharp (1980:5).

This is heightened with Zone Two, the least realistic of the zones

in the ordinary sense. It is blue. Blue is the colour of the sky,

representing also the colour of illusion, and blue is traditionally

the colour of the spiritual. In Marriages, blue is the colour of

mourning in Zone Three so it has links with death. The ideas of

Zone Two as an eternal, meditative other realm are all drawn in.

This deliberate distancing intensifies the epic effect of the

novel. The narrator's role is similar, he tells us all along how

key events are shown by the picture makers of the various zones,

how they are fixed for a moment in a particular version and then

conceived, repainted as the social reality of the zone changes.

However, Al. ith and Ben Ata function as real people. They

are the only round characters in the novel. For instance, we are

told what Al. Ith and Ben Ata look like. Al. Ith was "not 128 unbeautiful, with her dark eyes, dark hair" (1980:45), while Ben

Ata is described as "large, blond, muscular from continual campaigning an burned ruddy brown on the face and arms. His eyes were grey" (1980:40) . But we are given only so much detail as will give them body and for us to understand their relationship and their changes. Their relationship, their journeying into each other's depths is related in an intimate, personal, even sensuous way. At first, the protagonists appear at a distance, a bit larger than lie, heroic. As the two enter upon their marriage, however,

and are driven through the emotions of fear, patience, lust, rage,

liking, masochism, ecstacy, jealousy, rebellion, dependence,

friendship, they become smaller, more complicated. Al. Ith teaches

Ben Ata many intimate details about sex for which he is grateful, but also resentful, even fearful. Later, after love has developed,

Al. Ith notes in herself, with dismay "the sharp—as if with an

ambiguous wound—pleasures she felt in being ground and pounded

into these ecstasies of submission..." (1980:201). In Ben Ata's

case there are moments when, despite his awakened sensuality, he

needs to be "all grab and grind" (1980:197), to extinguish all the

possibilities of sweetness and playfulness. For Al. Ith, with love

comes the possibility of jealousy, an emotion unknown in complacent

Zone Three. "Aggression, tenderness, lust, passivity, ambivalence,

hostility—the whole spectrum of sexual emotions is explored in the

Marriages" (Towers, NYTBR, 1980:1) . After this Ben Ata and Al. Ith 129 seem older. Their heroism is no longer easy; it has become painful, real.

Lessing describes with great sensitivity the problems men and women encounter, the way people ar locked into their perceptions.

This can best be illustrated in what happens when Al. Ith and Ben

Ata first meet. Everything they say to each other is misinterpreted and misunderstood and both secretly wonder how the marriage will work out. The novel is thus more than allegory. The two realms operate as an image of heterosexual love, showing how men and women inevitably meet as foreigners. The novel is also partly a representation of a process of political education.

Through the marriage, Zone Four draws closer to the public values

of its neighbour and vice versa.

The relationships between the zones shift according to where

we locate ourselves. For example, Al. Ith finds the nature of Zone

Four to be conflict and battle and warring. "In everything a

tension and fighting in its very substance, so that every feeling,

every thought held in it its own opposite (1980:97). Undoubtedly

we are shown that this is a problematic state of things. Zone Four

has analogies to our world, aspects exaggerated into bold relief

which is why Marriages is more than a legend or a myth. In fact,

Nicholas Shrimpton in his review of Marriages says that the

landscape of Zone Four "represents Flanders, the traditional

cockpit of Europe" (New Statesman, 1980:783). In Zone Four, the 130 warfare, brutality, hierarchial social stratification and organizations, and enforced obedience. The agricultural capacities of the zones are barely tapped. Fields lie unused due to a lack of labour because males are drafted into the army at the age of seven. Most women of Zone Four are bitter and unhappy. However, there is an underground movement of women. The women practice secret rites, such as staring up at the mountains on Zone Three, which is a forbidden act, punishable by law.

If we compare Zone Four to Zone Three, then Zone three

is a pastoral and represents what Zone Four might become.

Zone Three has no exploitation or oppression, no hierarchy based

on force, privilege or possession. Children are looked after by

both sexes—biological parents and others. There is no sexual

ownership—sexual monogamy is only temporary, and a woman will

cojoin with other men during pregnancy, men whose vibrations she

feels are right for her and the child to be. Sex is not lustful.

Individuals have only to be patient to understand each other since

all have heightened intuition and sensitivity.

The fact that there is no polarisation between existence and essence shows itself in the results of all this unalienated activity—the buildings have an indescribable beauty, harmony is everywhere apparent (Marsha Rowe, 1982:197).

Work is a pleasure and people take enormous pride in making

beautiful things. There was "variety" (1980:270) and "loving 131 inventiveness" (1980:270) in everything they made.

It is definitely a "feminist" Utopia in the sense of being a feminized world: one in which women are independent and men do women's work. Unlike Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.

Marriages has today's gender patterns. It is heterosexual, so that biological sexual differences still hold as a directing force in some personality traits and preferences. But this apparently

Utopian zone also has its problems, which necessitates the marriage with Zone Four.

Throughout the Utopia, as the novel begins, stasis is setting in. The animals are sorrowful and unable to mate and so are the people. But by the end of the novel the immobilization is ended, transformed. To put it simply. Zone Three has been revitalized, rejuvenated by Zone Four.

Sometime after Al. Ith has a child with Ben Ata, they receive orders from the Providers to separate. Al. Ith proceeds to Zone

Three and Ben Ata to a marriage in Zone Five. To his surprise,

Vahshi (his new consort) finds Ben Ata first. His soldiers dump her, a bound and struggling captive, at his feet. Zone Five also changes because of the marriage with Zone four. Whereas before

Zone Three was refined and Zone Four (Ben Ata) was barbaric, now

it is Ben Ata who appears civilized and Zone Five (Vahshi) who

appears primitive. Within his zone, Ben Ata had sought refuge from

women and had not recognized them as persons in their own right. 132

However, due to Al. Ith's influence he changes. When he marries

Vahshi, he becomes in part also a teacher to her and her zone.

Zone Five is a matriarchy but is very different from Zone Three.

~Vahshi's tribe lives by plunder and banditry, and plays exuberant, exhilarating games to test daring and physical powers. Through her marriage with Ben Ata, Vahshi learns to think, to reason, to consider. At first, she thinks it too slow a process to bother with. Later she realizes that Ben Ata is beyond her in some ways-

- "she could acknowledge that, even if only secretly an to herself"

(1980:265). Ben Ata might be stolid and slow but he was not

stupid. "They were a balance for each other, that was it"

(1980:265).

Ben Ata, in the meantime, also learns to recognize the positive qualities of Zone Five. Zone Five for all its barbarism

displays a cunning, quick wit. Its armies have always been one

step ahead of Zone Four, whose armies they have watched march and

manoeuvre in militaristic formation with great amusement. He

partly envies the way they carry their dried meat around in handy

pouches eliminating the need for soup kitchens, tents, and queues.

In Marriages, nothing is constant and there is a dialectical

continuity of process. In the self, it is a movement of desire

reaching resolution only to have to begin again at a new level.

This idea of continual evolution is essentially of Sufi origin and

is a dominant theme in the book. Al. Ith influences Ben Ata and 133 helps him to higher things even though "he was carrying around with

•him a curse or a demon who prevented him from being with Al. Ith

in a way that could lead him to incredible happiness" (1980:40),

Al. Ith's sojourn in Zone Four is sorrowful and strange but it is necessary. Murti tells her, "You have been given a part to play.

For the sake of us" (1980:118) and Al. Ith accepts her lot. But

when Ben Ata and Al. Ith fall in love with each other, they are

forced to part. Lessing does not give their story a conventional

ending—she pushes them to greater and new heights. Al. Ith

returns to Zone Three and finds that her people do not recognize

her any more and have made Murti queen. But her suffering has

stemmed the rot which had started to set in Zone Three. Al. Ith

tells Murti, "And now instead of a falling birthrate and animals

who will not mate we have the opposite. The opposite, Murti

(1980:229). In Zone Four, too, there was a general complaint about

the same thing "but suddenly, from one day to the next, everything

is its own opposite, black is white" (1980:149). This suffering

also prepares Al. Ith for the superior knowledge of Zone Two.

According to Sufi principles, this knowledge can only be imbibed

gradually. Once again, as in Briefing, timing is of supreme

importance. Enlightenment or knowledge comes only when the

recipient is prepared for it, that is, when one is sufficiently

refined and has developed the capacity for imbibing the new

perception, or when one's experiences have prepared one for it. 134

After her return from Zone Four, Al. ith realizes that she no longer fits into the life of Zone Three. "She was not going to be accepted into her old self or into her land" (1980:232) , She moves to the borders of Zone Two, and slowly, after a lot of preparation moves into Zone Two, itself.

In the meantime, Ben Ata and Vahshi go through a gamut of emotions before they realize what is expected of them. They slowly recognize the fact that each zone needs the other. Without each other they become "insular... self sufficing..." (1980:14). At the end of the book there is a continuous movement between the zones.

"There was a lightness, a freshness, and an enquiry and a remaking and an inspiration where there had been only stagnation. And closed frontiers" (1980:299).

According to Marsha Rowe, (1982:202) each zone represents the four traditional psychic qualities. Zone Five is sensation. Zone

Four is thinking. Zone Three is feeling and Zone Two is intuition.

But these qualities do not match from the viewpoint of astrology.

In astrology the symbol for thought (Zone Four) is air (Zone Two), or the symbol of feeling (Zone Three) is water (Zone Four). But

Lessing mixes it up: Zone Two represents air; Zone Three, fire;

Zone Four, water; and Zone Five, earth. Each Zone, says Marsha

Rowe, is "lopsided on its own" (1982:202). Zone Four, thinking is

"obsessional, lacking moral self consciousness, hell-bent on

activity—in other words externalized" (1982:202). 135

Zone Three has made the same mistake with its feelings.

According to Al. Ith, "feelings are meant always to be directed outwards and are used to strengthen a general conception of ourselves and of our realm" (1980:5). But Lessing shows that such feelings lead "to superficiality or lethargy" (Rowe, 1982:203).

Each zone, says Marsha Rowe, needs the energy of its outer side

(1982:203) .

Fantasy in Marriages is given freer play. What at first looks

like an allegory of the male female relationship turns out to be

full of charm. Lessing creates a sensuous world which at first

glance seems to have nothing to do with ours. A closer

examination, however, reveals affinities. The behaviour and

beliefs of Zone Four are similar to ours. By using fantasy,

Lessing heightens the consequences of such beliefs and behaviour.

She demonstrates the danger and stupidity of being insular, smug

and self-satisfied.