The Grass is Singing: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The narrator explains that as the railway expanded across southern Africa, little clusters of buildings appeared, “the centers of farming districts.” They sometimes include a post office or a hotel, but always a store. These stores are the symbol of southern Africa and can be found everywhere. They are small, single-story buildings divided into a grocery, a butcher, and a liquor store. However, they can also sell everything from clothes to cosmetics. For people who grew up in southern Africa, many of their childhood memories center around the store, where their parents might stop for a drink or collect their mail. The store would temporarily transport them back to England, the distant home for which they felt a persistent longing.

This chapter jumps back in time to Mary’s childhood. Mary thinks of England as “home” even though she has never seen it—even her parents were born in South Africa. The store is an especially important part of Mary’s childhood. She would spend hours there, although Mary’s mother banned her from playing with the daughter of the store owner because the family was Greek.

The store is also where Mary’s father buys alcohol. Mary’s mother makes a big show of complaining that her husband spends all their money on drink, leaving her to raise three children on nothing. Mary’s father does not drink himself to “brutality,” but is a rather happy drunk. He is a railway worker who is deferential to petty officials and rude to native people. Every month, Mary’s parents fight over the bills. Her older brother and sister die of dysentery in the same year, and this briefly brings her parents together; Mary thinks of this period of grief as “the happiest time of her childhood.” The family moves three times, but in Mary’s memory each place is exactly the same. Mary is sent to boarding school, where she’s happy to be away from her family, and eventually decides to leave home at 16. She finds a job as a typist in a small town, and by 20 has made a close group of friends and “a niche in the life of the town.”

Shortly after Mary leaves home, Mary’s mother dies and Mary’s father is transferred 500 miles away. Mary feels relief and no sympathy for her father, who she imagines cannot suffer because he is a man. She continues to enjoy her “comfortable, carefree existence as a single woman,” unaware of how unusual and privileged a position this is in comparison to the experiences of women all over the world. When Mary is 25, her father dies, leaving her with no connection to her childhood and a sense of total happiness and freedom. Mary’s happiness is the most extraordinary thing about her; she is somewhat pretty, though rather thin and plain.

By 30 little in Mary’s life has changed, and she feels no older than 16. She works as her employer’s personal secretary and earns enough money to get her own apartment. However, she chooses to remain living in a girls’ club designed for women who make little money, because it reminds her of boarding school and because she is respected there. Mary is older than the other women, and stays at an aloof distance from their “intimacies” and dramas. She holds a similar position of authority in her office, simply because she’s been there so long. Looking back, this period of time can be seen as a “Golden Age” for women that has now disappeared. Each day, Mary arrives at the office on time, goes home to the club for lunch, and works for two hours in the afternoon before being taken out by various male friends for tennis, hockey, or a swim. At night she goes to dance at parties or to the movies.

As the years pass, Mary’s friends get married and their children grow older. Mary remains single, healthy, happy, and carefree. She continues to dress in “little-girl fashion.” Other people think she is missing the most important aspects of life, but the narrator notes that some people simply do not want these things. Mary’s impression of marriage and childbearing is poisoned by her own unhappy family, and she is repulsed by sex as a result of unspecified incidents that took place in her childhood home. Occasionally Mary wonders if there will ever be more to her life, and she craves this greater sense of meaning, but these moments always pass. She is not sensitive to “atmosphere” and thus does not notice the general pressure that compels all women to marry—until one day it’s shoved rudely in her face.

One day Mary is sitting alone on the veranda of her married friend’s home when she overhears two of her friends gossiping disapprovingly about her girlish lifestyle and the fact that she isn’t married. They insult her appearance and suggest that she will never marry. Mary is horrified; she did not know her friends thought this, and did not recognize herself in their description.

Mary immediately begins to dress differently and feels newly “unconformable” around men. She begins looking for a husband, and finds a possible candidate in a 55-year-old widower. They get engaged, but when he attempts to have sex with her, Mary is overcome by a “violent revulsion” and runs home to the girls’ club. She begins to avoid men over 30; although she is also older than 30, she still thinks of herself as a little girl. News of how she ran away from her fiancée spreads among Mary’s social group, who laugh scornfully at her behavior. They gossip about how bad she looked and muse that she must be having a nervous breakdown.

Mary is crushed by the way her image of herself has been destroyed, and she feels conscious that people look at her pityingly. It’s at this time that she meets Dick. He “might have been anybody,” or at least anyone who would treat her as if she was “wonderful and unique.” Dick is visiting town from his farm; a friend persuaded him to stay the night and go to the cinema. Dick dislikes being in town and longs to be back on the farm. He especially hates the cinema, and the feeling of being squished into the auditorium with so many other people.

At the cinema that night, Dick looks down the row of seats, notices Mary, and asks who she is. After his friend replies simply with “Mary,” Dick forgets about her, until later on that night when he dreams about her, the first time in years he has dreamed about a woman. Since starting work on the farm 5 years ago, Dick has given up drinking, cigars, and all luxuries. He hopes to get married and have children, but feels it would be impossible to ask a woman to share his frugal, isolated life. He dreams of being able to “spoil” a wife with a large, elegant house. However, he has been unlucky in farming, so much so that other farmers nickname him “Jonah.”

Dick is wary of thinking about women, but cannot get Mary out of his mind. A month after the cinema trip, he comes back to town and sets off in search of her. When he arrives at her building, he doesn’t recognize her; she’s wearing trousers, which in Dick’s eyes eradicate any femaleness about her. Mary asks him if he’s looking for her, and Dick is overcome with embarrassment. He manages to ask her if she wants to go for a drive, and as they drive along he realizes that he really does like her. Back on the farm, however, Dick worries about the prospect of getting married, which he cannot afford. Over the next few months, he labors so strenuously that he grows exhausted and thin. He resolves to return to town with a “defeated little smile.”

Meanwhile, Mary has been tormented by Dick’s apparent lack of interest in her, thinking it proves that the cruel rumors about her are correct. She stays awake all night waiting for him to call, and one morning her boss tells her to take time off until she’s feeling better. Mary goes home glumly, trying unsuccessfully to convince herself that she was not actually interested in Dick. Eventually she gives up hope and goes to the doctor, who tells her she must take a holiday immediately to avoid having a total nervous breakdown. A few weeks after this, Dick appears at Mary’s door. She forces herself to restrain her emotions and behave in a “calm, maternal” way. He proposes to her in an adoring, bashful fashion, and they get married two weeks later. Dick confesses that he’s too poor to give them a honeymoon, but this doesn’t upset Mary—secretly, she’s relieved.