A Lady on The Roof

Kristi A. Ward
6/7/03
Eng 104

The story “A women on a roof” by Doris Lessing is about three stereotypical men working on a roof on a hot day in June watching a women sunbath. The story contains three protagonists named Harry, Stanley and Tom. Harry is 45 years old, Stanley’s age is unknown and Tom is 17. They are engaged in hooting and hollering at a young girl faced down on a brown blanket. The characters face two antagonists: heat and the lady on the roof. The plot contains a climax and an anti-climax.
Throughout the story the protagonists are in direct conflict with the heat from the sun and the lady sunbathing on the roof. The driving force behind the story is the sun. If the weather was not hot, the lady would not be sunbathing, the roof would be fixed and there would be no plot. This is proven in the last paragraph that states the men are “surrounded by damp drizzling roofs, where no one came to sun themselves, black roofs, slimy with rain. Becaus...