EUROPE -REVUE LITTERAIRE MENSUELLE ISSN: 0014-2751 www.rrbitz.com ..... EUROPE 2016 DOUBLE-EFFECT REASONING AND BLACK REVENGE IN DORIS LESSING’S THE GRASS IS SINGING: A STUDY OF BLACK ETHICS AND HONOR Pedram Lalbakhsh a , Mohammad-Javad Haj’jari b a Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran b Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran Abstract A white woman’s murder by a black man, as depicted in Doris Lessing’s The Grass IS Singing, incorporates the revengeful act o f an abandonment-neurotic black servant against a white female master with tactile delirium in the course of a paradoxical relationship of love and hate. The final homicide and the consequent act of surrender by Moses convey his paradoxical attitude toward his white master-beloved. This attitude begins with hatred, intensifies with mutual affection, and ends in murder. Focusing on the interracial revenge that takes place in the novel under study, the authors of this paper argue that Moses’ motivation in killing Mary originates from the ambivalence of his state of living under colonization and his learnings in Christianity, struggling with the Double-Effect Reasoning inaugurated by and in defense of black honor or negritude. As such, Moses’ sense of guilt and subsequent surrender are the consequences of t raditional and colonial internalization of sin, already present in him as a native of his revenge or honor-based society, influenced by Lobengula’s rule in which the criminal submits to punishment willingly, as well as missionary teachings. Through an interdisciplinary link between the Double-Effect Reasoning and the psychoanalytical perspective to the black problem promoted by Frantz Fanon, The Grass Is Singing thus seems to exempt Moses in his crime against the white race, represented by Mary, as well as to justify Moses self-surrender in defense of negritude and black honor Keywords: black ethics; colonization; Double Effect Reasoning; negritude; revenge 1. Introduction Double-Effect Reasoning (DER) discusses the permissibility of an action with human calamities as a side effect in achieving a good end. Such harm is considered a “foreseen side effect” or “double effect”, not intended, in causing the good end (McIntyre). Aquinas, following St. Augustine, is credited with introducing DER in Summa Theologica, defending the homicidal self-defense which happens unintentionally (McIntyre; Cavanaugh 1): “Nothing prevents one act from having two effects,” writes Aquinas, “of which only one is intended, the other being praeter intentionem [outside the moral intention]” (in Cavanaugh 3). Later elaborations emphasized the distinction between “causing a morally grave harm as a side effect of pursuing a good end” and “causing a harm as a means of pursuing a good end” (McIntyre). In general, DER is used to analyze “exceptional cases” in which a good end cannot be actualized without a bad