In The National Gallery

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In the National Gallery

A. Write an Essay (700-900 words) in which you analyse and interpret Doris Lessing’s short story “In the national Gallery”. To put your interpretation into perspective, your essay must include a discussion of at least two of the other items below. One of these must be a text.

“In the National Gallery” was written by the Nobel winning author Doris Lessing and was published in 2007. The problems, which are focused on in this story, verify that there is something wrong in todays society. With the elements of writing in past tense, different age groups, an interest or a lack of the same for art and with an open ending, Doris Lessing compels the reader to read the story to the end with an anticipation of a crisis emerging. This text will be analysed, interpreted and be put into perspective within this assignment. I will use the texts “ From The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Territorial” by Robin Robertson to put the story into perspective.

A painting of a chesnutted horse, painted by the british painter George Stubbs, was the center piece that the main characters all admired in the story. The old man in the story has a great knowledge about this painting and tries to teach his “apprentice”, a younger man, the characteristics about the painting. The old man knows that he is an important and measures each individual to see if they are worth his time, “Now he looked properly at me, took me in, decided that I was worthy to continue.”[1]. He has a past he can’t let go off and it is eating him up. He can’t get over a love he once had and the feelings overflow him when a young girl enters the gallery. An example which determines his obsession with feelings from his past is seen when the writer writes, “Then she disappeared with her group. Slowly, he followed.”[2].
The narrator is an unknown person with an interest for art. It is a
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