She saw poverty, failure, and the harsh climate. In the novel, Dick Turner is a poor farmer. His farm is barren. Lessing used her own farm memories. She saw how white farmers exploited black workers. Charlie Slatter represents the rich, cruel settler who farmed “with the sjambok”. This was real in Lessing’s Africa.

Race and Apartheid Experience: Lessing grew up in a racially divided world. She saw how whites treated blacks as cheap labor. In the novel, Mary shouts at the black workers. She says, 

“I will take two and six off the ticket of every one of them that isn’t at work in ten minutes.”

The murder of Mary by Moses reflects this tension. Lessing writes: 

‘‘White civilization’ which will never, never admit that a white person, and most particularly, a white  woman, can have a human relationship, whether for good or  for evil, with a black person.’’

This is her commentary on apartheid.

“The Grass is Singing” reflects Doris Lessing’s own life. Mary’s childhood pain, Dick’s farm struggles, and the racial divide are drawn from her Rhodesian experience. Through fiction, Lessing tells both her story and the story of colonial Africa.