Review of 'No Witchcraft for Sale' by Doris Lessing

No Witchcraft for Sale analyzed through the postcolonial lens, postcolonialism is prevalent throughout the story. The story is focused on Gideon, a native African, he lives in current day Zimbabwe. Within the story, the social structure is based around white people and black people are at the bottom serving the people of the higher class mostly people of white descent.

Gideon was raised as a mission boy, which is someone who is raised in a very religious household and was taught and practiced Christianity. He comforts Mrs.Farquar for having one child and claims its gods will. “Ah, missus. Missus, the lord from above sent this one; little yellow head is the most good thing we have in our house.” (Lessing,1) Since Gideon was raised in a religious mission, he has integrated racist views toward himself and people of colour. He believes that people of colour were born inferior through god’s will. And that people of colour are created for the sole purpose of being a servant and serving the white population. “Ah, missus, these are both children, and one will grow up to be a baas, and one will be a servant”; and Mrs. Farquar smiled and said sadly,“Yes, Gideon, I was thinking the same.” She sighed. “It is God’s will,” said Gideon. (Lessing,1) Furthermore, elaborating on this quote the author intentionally slipped grammatically errors into the dialogue of the Gideon to suggest that he is uneducated.“most good thing we have.” (Lessing,1)“He slipped into the house and found an orange and brought it to Gideon, saying: “This is for you.” He could not bring himself to say he was sorry; but he could not bear to lose Gideon’s affection either. Gideon took the orange unwillingly and sighed.”(Lessing,1) and “Because of that “we” Mrs. Farquar felt a warm impulse toward her cook; and at the end of the month, she raised his wages.” (Lessing,1) These quotes further push and make the post-colonial lens more prevalent; as the white masters don’t know how to interact with people of colour and treat them differently depending on their mood. This also shows the power that is held within the white population, changing the wages of their workers at will without any repercussions. Gideon is a native African working for a white upper-class family, from this you can extrapolate that the majority of the black Africans have low income at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Furthermore, when Teddy frightens Gideon’s son with a scooter, Teddy replied to Gideon was “He’s only a black boy,” and laughed. This clearly shows the ideology of eurocentrism, that white people are more superior than people of colour; this ideology is recognized at such a young age which means the idea of eurocentrism, classism, and racism is trickled down by the ruling class making children and society as a whole prejudice toward people of colour. Children and the rest of society carry out this ideology in their daily lives further pushing the status quo, which is that white people are superior to people of colour.

Additionally, this story takes place in Zimbabwe on a farm. From this, we can also extrapolate that white people are the ruling class to create all the rules and laws. And people of colour are in the working class serving the upper-class and following the laws set by the ruling class. Today we still see reminisce of the colonizing of various countries.