“In the National Gallery” is a short story written by Doris Lessing and published in 2007.
The text is told by a first person narrator, who tells about a visit at the National Gallery where he meet a man about sixty years old, a younger man who has a relation to him and a girl they all get attacked of.
A.
The difference between old and young peoples’ view on life and ability to live in the moment is the theme of this short story.
Lessing puts her starting-point at the first person narrator, who is a middle-aged man. He is at the National Gallery because he has a free hour and wants to spend it looking at art - especially a picture by the British painter George Stubbs. Also looking at the picture an elderly man who places himself next to the narrator. This man knows a lot about George Stubbs and is also quite fond of the picture like the narrator. Then a group of young girls enter the museum, and the narrator and the other man start talking about life as it was when they themselves were at their age. One of the girls come and sits beside the old man and that reminds him of a girl he was in love in as a boy. He tells the narrator about it, and he understand the man’s feelings, which give the reader an idea of that he must be middle-aged and experienced – he seems to be approximately the same age as the elderly man. You can see that at page 3, line 77-78 when the man tells about his unobtainable love and the narrator answer:
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