The House of Doors

The House of Doors takes place in three colonized places: Penang, where the bulk of the narrative takes place, was under British colonial rule from 1786 to 1957 (with the exception of 1941-1945, when it was under Japanese colonial rule); Kuala Lumpur was likewise a British colony in the timeline of the novel; and British-controlled South Africa (on the eve of apartheid, which began in 1948), where Lesley begins and ends the novel. Colonialism is thus an omnipresent force in The House of Doors, and its logic an unavoidable condition for the novel’s two narrators, both of whom experience the privileges of whiteness under colonial rule.

For Lesley, who fashions herself as someone desiring equality, this mindset entrenches her in the inability to see “equality” as something that can (or should) happen along racial lines. Instead, her interest in increased rights for women adheres particularly to the wants and needs of upper-class white women like herself. This tension comes to a head when she speaks with Sun Yat Sen about his vision for China: “‘The revolution is not mine alone,’ [Sun] said. ‘It belongs to all Chinese people, all over the world. We are going to establish a republic, a republic where everyone is equal, where everyone is free—men and women’” (121). Lesley, conditioned to see herself as the center of every narrative, thinks exclusively of the gendered aspect of his equality that Sun promises, disregarding his insistence that it is for Chinese people globally—including the Chinese people in Penang, a demographic majority. She admires Sun’s vision—until he reveals that he practices polygamy and considers such a state natural, but only when men have multiple wives and not the reverse. Sun, for his part, reveals his own limitations in terms of imagining equality for someone other than him, as he projects an essentialist position onto women as not experiencing sexual desire, a common view for men in The House of Doors.

When Lesley hears this assertion, she says, “‘Your talk of equality means nothing […] You men, you can have all the women you want, but for us women—oh no. We have to stand by our husbands’” (121). For Lesley, equality means “nothing” if it doesn’t include her particular concerns—the lack of autonomy she feels within her own marriage. Her mindset, emphasized both by self-absorption and the conditions of colonialism that encourage that self-absorption, preclude any possible allyship that could lead to the promotion of increased justice. Her work with the Tong Meng Hui does not alter this perspective; instead, she thinks of her personal enjoyment of being part of revolution, not the lives that will be lost. When she hears Sun Wen speak, Lesley thinks, “I was witnessing a turning point in history, and this evening I had even been part of it. It was all very thrilling” (164). Though she immediately thereafter muses on the word “sun” as the center of the universe, Lesley remains solidly fixed as the center of her own universe, in which the cares of white women always emerge as of utmost importance. This way of being, forcibly asserted by colonialism, thus gives Robert’s pessimistic statement several pages later an air of truth: “There will always be inequality, Lesley. That’s the way of the world” (167). Inequality is, at the very least, the way of their world—and as intrenched as they are, they cannot imagine otherwise.