A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "No Witchcraft for Sale"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Doris Lessing's "No Witchcraft for Sale," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535829656

Book preview

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No Witchcraft for Sale

Doris Lessing

1964

Introduction

Doris Lessing's short story No Witchcraft for Sale was published in her renowned 1964 collection African Stories. As the book's title implies, the story is set in Africa, and it portrays the cultural tensions and dissonance between blacks and whites in colonial Africa (a time when much of Africa was under European rule). Lessing's No Witchcraft for Sale embodies the characteristic themes and content for which the author became famous. Lessing was well acquainted with colonial Africa; her British family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when she was only six, and Lessing was raised in the setting that she later used as the subject of her fiction.

No Witchcraft for Sale portrays the Farquar family and its beloved servant Gideon. When the Farquars' only son, Teddy, is at risk of losing his sight after a tree snake spits its venom into his eyes, Gideon retrieves a plant from the African bush (wilderness) country and uses it to effect a seemingly miraculous cure. This act, however, leads the Farquars and Gideon into conflict as they attempt to get him to disclose the whereabouts of the plant in order to make it available to others.

Because African Stories is one of the best-known collections by a preeminent twentieth-century feminist writer, it remained in print for several years after its initial release. As Lessing's output slowed on account of her advancing age, however, her work became more obscure, and the most recent edition of the collection was released by Simon and Schuster in 1981.

Author Biography

Lessing was born Doris May Tayler (some sources say Taylor) on October 22, 1919, in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran). Her parents, Alfred Cook Tayler and Emily Maude McVeagh, were British citizens living abroad. The family moved to the British Colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1925, in the hopes of making its fortune farming corn there. They were, however, relatively unsuccessful in this endeavor. Lessing's childhood was spent joyfully exploring the wild with her brother Henry and miserably attending a rigid convent school. After being sent to attend high school in Salisbury (then capital of Southern Rhodesia), Lessing dropped out at age thirteen. However, she was a voracious reader and continued her education on