The woman

Outer characterization

The unnamed woman is the main character in the short story “DHSS” by Doris Lessing. She appears to be very young: “she was a girl, really” (p. 63, l. 5) and “probably not much more than twenty-two or twenty-three” (p. 63, ll. 25-26). She has children, but we do not know how many. She is dressed casually, in jeans and a sweater, but her appearance is “drab (…) not so much dirty as stale” (p. 63, l. 24). She smokes a lot, and her hands are stained with nicotine (p. 63, ll.24-25). We are told she had a job a couple of months ago, but she lost it because she was trying to get her money from the DHSS, perhaps because her job was not well-paid enough to support her family (p. 66, ll. 4-6). This suggests her poor financial situation, as well as her lower-class status.

Inner characterization

The woman is filled with anger and resentment at the injustice of her vulnerable situation. The main target of...