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A Call for True Harmony between Man and Woman: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Male Characters in Doris Lessing’s Major Works

Author: LiJingJing
Tutor: ZouZuo
School: Zhejiang Technology and Business University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Doris Lessing Psychoanalytic Criticism The Grass is Singing The Golden Notebook, love, again Male Character Guilty Pleasure Splinted Personality Androgyny
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2010
Downloads: 446
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Abstract

This thesis investigates, from the perspective of psychoanalytic criticism, the inner minds of the main male characters in Doris Lessing’s three major novels:The Grass is Singing (1950), The Golden Notebook (1962) and love, again (1996). By showing the characters’emotional dilemmas, this paper tries to uncover the psychological progress of men over the past fifty years, and discuss about Lessing’s ideal of the relationship between two sexes, and an idealistic world which Lessing never writes about.Often regarded as the most talented woman writer after Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing (1919-) won the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature for her contribution of being an epicist of the female experience, who, with skepticism fire and visionary power, has subjected a divided civilization to security. Critics usually treat her as a complete feminist writer, and worship her works as bibles for feminists. But Lessing is far more than that. She writes honestly not only about women’s lives and beliefs and the pressures that political and social events in the 20th century life and society put on them, but also men’s desire and struggle, passion and repression. She is an ideal androgynous writer.The thesis has five chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction to Doris Lessing and her novels, the research objective and the interpretative methodology. Chapter two focuses on The Grass is Singing, discussing Dick, the protagonist, a poor white farmer, and Moses, Dick’s black servant, and shows their pleasure and punishment. Chapter three explores The Golden Notebook’s male characters in two categories:the first type is phallocentric-conscious men who are selfish, arrogant, and bring women miseries but get punished for their vicious behavior. The second type is mentally broken down. Chapter four examines the reality and repression experienced by the male characters in love, again. Chapter five is the conclusion, stating that the underlying theme explored and emphasized in Lessing’s novels is the call for true harmony between man and woman.

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