The Cleft (as Lessing writes in a brief foreword) was inspired by a ‘scientific article’ which suggested that the ‘basic and primal human stock was probably female, and that males came along later, as a kind of cosmic afterthought’. The novel is based on this premise: it is a fantasy about the beginnings of man- and womankind.
‘The Cleft’ is the name both of a location and a race. It is a rock by the sea, below which a race of women — only women — live. There is no such thing as man. Women live at the water’s edge, like seals or mermaids, and become pregnant according to the phases of the moon, giving birth only to girls.
Into this placid world comes a little monster: a baby boy. The Cleft actually call him a ‘Monster’, considering him a defunct female. They don’t know what to do with him, so they fiddle about with him quite brutally and then leave him out on a rock to be eaten by eagles.
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