Litterær analyse: 'In Defence of the Underground'

“In Defence of the Underground” is a novel written by Doris Lessing from her work “London Observed”. The story is about a person traveling with the underground train and observing what’s going on in the person’s surroundings.

You don’t get to hear whether the main character is a male or a female, but because Doris is well known for writing self-biographical stories, and the age of the character fits with the author, I’ll assume that the person is a female. She’s thinking back at the past and remembering, how things used to be all through the story. Most of the time you hear about her, observing what’s going on outside the train, and how people act in front of her. Therefore you don’t get to hear a lot of details about her. One thing is for sure though, and that is, that according to her, the world used to be better than it is now. Countless times she describes stuff that doesn’t work, because youngsters have broken it, or things they should’ve left as they were. E.g. on page 81 at the bottom: “If they had let the mill stand we would be proud of it, and they would charge us to go in and see how things used to be.” And “There used to be decent lavatories, but they are locked up because they are vandalized as soon as reparired.” She’s tired of the new generation doing whatever they want to, and behaving badly. But she does not interfere with the young people, she just looks passively at it, and remembers the better times. And it’s not only the young people that make London such a bad place; new technology and modern development in general, are also objects that make London a worse place to live. E.g. page 91 in the last paragraph: “These days there are so many electronic bleeps, cheeps, buzzes, blurps, that we don’t hear them.” And at page 94 in the last paragraph: “As I turn the corner past where the old mill stood I leave behind the stink and roar of vehicles pushing their way northwards and I realize that for some minutes it has been unpleasant to breathe.”