On The Appeal To Ethical Identity In Ben, In The World

Ben, in the world is one of Doris Lessing’s late period creations. Doris Lessing focuses on the exploration to the human society and spiritual world, so her works are fulfilled with the thinking of life and reality. Ben, in the world is the continuation of The Fifth Child after12years, and this novel is the best creation that shows her late period thoughts. This novel mainly described Ben, a tragic figure who behaved both ethical consciousness and animal feature, running away from home and searching for the ethical identity in society. Ben is man or a beast? Why he had obvious animal features but also eager to the ratification of human society? And then how he chose his ethical identity in the conflict of society and himself? Ben committed suicide at last, the reason why this tragedy happened was the unconcerned of his family and cruel society. All of these problems showed more or less of our society. Lessing aims telling us:As we lived in the society, we have to comply with the ethical role of family and the world. And we must pay more attention to the marginal man, to promote the harmonious development of our family and society.This paper is based on the close reading and mainly uses the method of literary ethical criticism to analyze the identity problem of Ben and try to find out the reason of this tragedy. This thesis mainly contained three parts. The first part discussed the ethical identity of Ben, that is, Ben is man or a beast. The behavior under the ethical consciousness and the spontaneous of the animal feature are the hint of this problem. The second part mainly discussed the ethical tragedy maybe that occurred under effect on both the ethical idea and animal feature. The third part discussed the atavistic Ben’s tragedy and the moral inspiration that the author gave us. Doris Lessing has sharp observation to the current situation and crisis of the world. People as Ben are not lonely, so much people are the same as him. Why Ben ended his life in such developed society? The biggest reason is the chaos of the ethical rule. As a real man in the world, we have to know the importance of ethical rule and family moral, only by complying with both of them, can the world develop in harmony.