The Story Archive

The Good Terrorist

Doris Lessing · 1985 CE · Novel · English · Contemporary

Alice Mellings, thirty-six and still funded by the parents she despises, moves into a condemned London house with a group of would-be revolutionaries and sets about getting the water on, the rates paid and the buckets of filth out of the upstairs rooms. Her domestic competence holds the collective together as it edges from picket lines towards something none of them has the discipline for. Lessing's coldest account of political self-deception.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalSatirePsychological
Theme
Individual vs SocietyPower & CorruptionMotherhoodIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
CaregiverRebel / OutlawEveryman
Plot structure
Ironic ReversalEpisodic
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe City
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
RealistIronicSatirical
Culture / tradition
English

Closest analogues