The grass is singing of what did mary's brother and sister die

Her house is cluttered with books, throws, sheepskin rugs and a black and white cat called Yum-Yum ('after the Mikado') whose smell is everywhere. She is nearly 80 now and has been based in London for 50 years, first in Notting Hill, then in Earls Court, now in a winding street of mansion blocks in north west London. I never have since I left that first house.'

'Whatever I am, I have been made so by central Africa,' she wrote in Going Home, her journalistic account of Southern Rhodesia. Its cultures are unquantifiable, its influence on those who grew up there too intrinsic to analyse.

Africa, she pointed out, is not like 'the Isle of Wight or Long Island'. Lessing blinked at her with undisguised irritation. 'What influence does African culture have on your work?' asked a witless member of the audience at the Hay on Wye literary festival some years ago. Above all, she had survived the punishing cycle of drought and thunderstorm which characterises the African bush, where children must learn to conquer their fear of snakes, scorpions and poisonous insects. By the time she was 30 she had survived successive waves of bullying, from an embittered mother, from a regime of unhinged nuns, from a bigoted husband. Lessing is not a woman easily intimidated. The following year, the Rhodesian government named her a 'prohibited immigrant' and she was banned from the country she grew up in, until the old order crumbled and it turned into Zimbabwe in 1980. 'What are you,' she asked drily, 'the Ku Klux Klan?' Like a child fulfilling a dare, he gabbled a warning about putting ideas into the blacks' heads, before losing his nerve and leaving. A large, blond, South African man approached her at a table one afternoon and after hesitating for a moment, handed over a white feather dipped in tar. This was 1956 and her debut novel, The Grass Is Singing, about a relationship between a white woman and a black man, was incensing colonial Africa. He chose the right path and escaped the grass forever.It was in a cafe in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, that Doris Lessing received her first, rather clumsily delivered death threat. They were not redeemed.Д«ut the man who willingly stayed behind to save his unborn child atoned for his sins was, and as he closed his eyes for the final time he looked skyward, to a beautiful blue and infinite bliss. The ground opens, and itвЂ™s revealed those damned souls were absorbed into its roots where they were made to suffer for eternity. We see the fate of those who succumbed to the rockвЂ™s evil when Becky gives birth in front of it. Travis is also saved, even though he dies.

This time she chooses to turn around and go home to raise her baby with her family. The non-linear nature of time in the grass makes it so everything is happening at once, and since those trapped in it are reborn again and again, it gives Becky a chance to take a different path entirely. He stops them from ever entering the grass by showing Becky the charm Travis gave him, after Travis took it from a dead Becky earlier. There, Tobin is able to warn Becky and Cal to ignore a past TobinвЂ™s cries from the grass. Whatever вЂњwisdomвЂќ the rock gave Travis allows him to send Tobin out, back to the church on the side of the road. вЂњIвЂ™m not leaving, but youвЂ¦ you donвЂ™t belong here, and neither does Becky,вЂќ Travis says, вЂњDonвЂ™t let them in.вЂќ He knows Tobin was right, he could never leave the grass after touching the rock, but the others still have a chance to escape its clutches. Did Travis believe Ross when he told him the rock would redeem him? Was it a desperate attempt to discover a path out? Was he tempted by it after taking another personвЂ™s life? Whatever the reason, when he did place his hand on the rock, it connected him with the underworld that gave the grass its dark power, as red lightвЂ“resembling the blood that had been spilled on its soil for so longвЂ“emanated out.Д«ut unlike Ross, who continued to feed the evilвЂ“murdering again and again and even feeding Becky her newborn babyвЂ“Travis uses his powers for good. Tobin, RossвЂ™s young son, warns TravisвЂ“who wanders into the grass after stumbling on Becky and her brotherвЂ™s car in a nearby parking lotвЂ“of that same fate after he kills Ross, but Travis touches it anyway. вЂњEatingвЂќ the rockвЂ™s knowledge trapped Ross there forever without his humanity, in a place he calls вЂњThe Garden of Forking Paths.вЂќ In the Biblical Paradise, eating the treeвЂ™s fruit gave Adam and Eve wisdom but led to their banishment forever.

The grass is singing of what did mary's brother and sister die