Freedom has at least two main dimensions: social and psychological. The social dimension deals with the conditions of society, including power, the legal system, the economic system, socialisation and the state apparatuses carrying out that task, and so forth. The psychological dimension deals with inner mental processes—at an individual or group level—which predispose the individual to freedom and consequently to self-realisation.
This paper will deal principally with the latter dimension by analysing Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing, examining the mindstyle or worldview of the female protagonist by means of a stylistic analysis of one of more excerpts in order to show that and how her freedom, hence her ability to develop to the full, has been circumscribed, rendering her incapable of any analytical thought worthy of the name, thereby condemning her to the limits imposed by her upbringing and situated worldview, which “determine” the tragedy of which she is the protagonist.