Chapter Five Summary and Analysis

The author remembers the entire family suffers from two bouts of malaria and her mother has a breakdown that keeps her in bed for a month. It is during this time that Lessing learns how to read. Lessing is learning the power of an imagination. Lessing knows now her mother's illness is anxiety or some form of depression, but at the time her mother is convinced it is the result of a bad heart. Lessing remembers being told all her life that her family is poor, but when she begins attending public school she finds there are families in much worse financial shape. Lessing sees how most white people in Africa regard the indigenous black population. Out of necessity, the two children go to the lands with their father, and play in the bush while he works the land...