Analyse af 'The Mother of the Child in Question'

“The Mother of the Child in Question” is a short story by Doris Lessing, from 1988.

A social worker named Stephen Bentley has to try and convince a Pakistani family to send their youngest daughter to a special school because she is retarded. The family in question is the Khans, an immigrant family consisting of Mr & Mrs Khan, their son Hassan, their daughter Shireen and two older daughters that we don’t hear anything specific about in the story.

The Khan family lives in what appears to be a ghetto in England, poor block buildings with many apartments. Clearly a very lowly ranked social are. The hallways in the building, e.g., are described as urine smelling and everything is grey concrete. On the 8th floor of one of these buildings, we find the Khan family’s apartment, which at first sight seems very cramped with furniture, even though it’s very clean and presentable.

The story is told through the eyes of Stephen Bentley. All the way through the story, we experience the story through his thoughts and observations. We follow his movement from the moment he first sets eyes on the building where the Khans live, till he leaves the building at the end of the story.