A Feminist Approach To Doris Lessing’s Ideas About Female Freedom In The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing (1919-), who was awarded Nobel Literature Prize in2007, is oneof the most celebrated and distinguished contemporary writers in English literature.With her durable writing passion, unique literary style, creative writing technique,distinctive theme, and profound connotations of the original literary, Lessing enjoys ahigh reputation in the literature field. The themes and the styles of Lessing·s writingsare diverse. Among her numerous literary works, female problem is no doubt the issueshe mostly concerns with. Almost all her novels are dominated by female protagonists,which present her profound ideas about female freedom. Women under lessing·s penare blessed with both masculine reason and feminine feeling in order to cope with thetasks required by their different roles.Lessing· masterpiece, The Golden Notebook, is a novel of women·s pursuit forfreedom. In this novel, Doris Lessing reveals female·s exquisite colorful inner worldfrom women·s own perspectives. With the approach of feminism and a text-basedanalysis, this thesis attempt to reveal women·s oppression that they felt in the modernindustrial society and the patriarchal culture and women·s brave pursuit of freedomand intact selves through the analysis of women·s pursuit and plights in their politicallife, professional life and spiritual life. Thus we can deeply probe into Lessing·s ideasabout female freedom.Through a feminist perspective, Lessing fully affirms the value of women. In TheGolden Notebook, She transforms the traditional female images and endows herprotagonists with the courage to express their love and grudge and to bravely pursuefor real freedom. She advocates a gender equality and encourages women to pursuefreedom bravely, which provides a new perspective for the study of female literatureand even world literature. Lessing·s ideas about female freedom in the novel guidesthe direction in the self-quest and psychological maturity for modern women, whichendows the thesis with its own profound social and realistic significance.