31 pages • 1 hour read
Doris LessingA Woman on a Roof
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Dramatic Irony
The unnamed, mostly silent woman who operates as an antagonist in the story does so in a context of dramatic irony. It is clear to the reader that the men’s unwelcome advances impinge on her freedom, and that she ignores them to protect herself and preserve her autonomy. The men, however, interpret her silence according to their own self-absorbed imaginations. Stanley grows enraged, all his insecurities about class and masculinity triggered. Tom misreads it entirely and, in his naivete, creates a romantic fantasy world in which the two of them become romantically and sexually involved. When he finally speaks to the woman face to face, she makes him realize that their “relationship” had no reality, but even then, he cannot see his own foolishness, and instead he blames her for misunderstanding him.
Color Symbolism: Red, White, and Black
The symbolism of white reminds us that women are supposed to be pure until they marry, while the color red connotes sexuality, heat, anger, and arousal. As seen on the woman, the little red pants that she folds into a triangle suggest sex. When Stanley’s sun-heated “face (is) getting scarlet” (79), red becomes rage. And when Tom is described as the “scarlet-faced excited boy,” red represents sexual potential.
In Tom’s sexual fantasy about the woman, the white rug symbolizes her untouched womanhood, and the white-leather headboard their imaginary marriage bed. The black negligee she wears during their night together suggests lovemaking, i.e., what husbands and wives do together in the dark.
In contrast to the meanings of white when used to portray the woman, when Stanley’s face turns white, it suggests illness, perhaps sunstroke (81). And when Tom’s face pales it loses all color, and with that loss of color goes the hope of sexual consummation with the object of his fantasies (81).
Imagery
By envisioning the woman as a fashion model on “a poster, or a magazine cover, with the blue sky behind her and her legs stretched out” (78), Tom unwittingly turns her into an unattainable love interest, similar to King Kong’s love interest, Ann Darrow (played by the actress Fay Wray), in the 1933 film. Tom sees “behind [the woman] a great crane at work on a new building in Oxford Street swung its black arms across roofs in a great arc. Tom imagined himself at work on the crane, adjusting the arm to swing over and pick her up and swing her back across the sky to drop her near him” (78). Not only does Tom see himself as physically powerful in this image, but he also dreams of holding a higher occupational status in the form of a skilled crane operator. The similarity of Tom’s sweeping action to pick up the woman using a crane parallels the way Kong clasps Ann Darrow as he scoops her out of a skyscraper window. The description of this action strengthens the argument for an allusion to the original King Kong film in this story, which was written at a time when film was the art considered most accessible to and meant for the masses.
Allusion
In an image that alludes to the film King Kong, on day two, Tom notices a crane swinging on Oxford Street and imagines himself swooping down to pick The Woman up from her rooftop, just as the world’s most famous gorilla swipes Ann Darrow from the window of a high-rise hotel room. Similar to Kong’s scaling the Empire State Building to find Ann Darrow, Tom and Stanley have scrambled across roofs and parapets (on buildings where they had no work to do) just so they can get a look at The Woman. Just as Kong’s animalistic actions occasionally look like an effort “to protect” his attractive female object, Tom’s internal thoughts indicate that he wants “to protect” The Woman from Stanley, as well as keep her for himself. While Tom’s attempts at communicating with The Woman prove less ferocious than Kong’s, they still fail at their intent, which is to evoke her tenderness.
Related Titles
By Doris Lessing
