A Study Of Body Discourse In The Novels Of Doris Lessing

Body narrative is a literary form to depict human body. Meanwhile, it is one of the topics that philosophical researchers focus on in the 20 th century. Body becomes the essence of human existence instead of the “Other” defined by the western philosophy tradition in the works of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Merleau-Ponty. Body is also foregrounded in literary works and becomes a hot-debated topic among literary critics. Daniel Pundy holds that body is constantly given meaning and used as a part of textual representation. And Ellen Hyde regards body as the product of discursive construction. The views of Pundy and Hyde indicate that discourse reconstructs and builds body. The connection between body and discourse has got a sounding interpretation in Foucault’s works as well, such as Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punishment, The Birth of the Clinic, The Archaeology of Knowledge. Judith Bulter also agrees that the materiality and symbolic traits of body renders it a correlative connection to discourse.As a realist and postmodern female writer, body has been used by Lessing to reflect the social reality, express her social worries and experience the growth of the protagonists’ in Lessing’s early works and her later novels as well, which are rich in fable fantasies. Through body narrative, Lessing represents the colonial power struggles, political discourse, and the social worries in the middle of the 20 th century. By taking the body theory as the starting point, the paper focuses on the body narrative of Lessing’s eight novels written in her early, middle and late writing periods respectively. Apart from “Preface” and “Conclusion”, the paper covers three chapters.Chapter One is “Body Narrative at the National Level”. This chapter mainly explores the connotations of the political discourses embodied in the body narratives of her colonial novels. On the one hand, colonial nations lay emphases on the supreme status of the White body. Both the bodies of white man and white woman participate in the construction of special colonial roles and cultural connotations for the colonial nations, among which white man also plays the role of policeman. Their body quality and health condition are closely related to their governing ability. And the body of white woman is also an important part in constructing white mythologies. That is to say, the physical quality and their behavior symbolize the civilization and the colonial power of the white; On the other hand, the black who have been described as the lower creatures are the main servants and laborers of the white, the contrasting population ratio between the white and the black makes them the biggest target that white people despised and frightened. By depicting the black as physically strong, Lessing endows them with great potential to struggle against the oppressors. To sum up, the white bodies and the black bodies imply not only the biological nature, but also the presentations of colonial power and struggling force, which are consequently given political connotations.Chapter Two is “Body Discourse at the Social Level”. This chapter explores the social discourse of body from class and racial perspective. And thus, Lessing’s social worries and her thinking about the argument between Lukacs and Brecht are speculated. By close reading and analysis of the racial discourse, middle class discourse and the marginalized body from the middle class angle, this chapter explores the relationship between body narratives and social reality depicted in Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing, “Children of Violence” series, The Fifth Child. In addition, it attaches special importance to the speechless and the marginalized, such as the black living in racial segregation, the dethroned Dutch-African white, the “abnormal” kids of the middle class family, and the retired old woman of the working class with lower status in bourgeois society. Body is not only the norm to judge the status of a specific group, but also the object depicted by the racial and class discourses in the colonial society as well. It is endowed with features of specific social groups. Therefore, bodies in different social groups are still the objects regulated and classified by racial and class discourses.Chapter Three is entitled “Body Discourse at Family Level”. It concentrates on the intrinsic connection between women’s body experience and male discourse. Taking the male’s examination of the female’s body as the measurement, this chapter discusses the connection between the woman of the colonial family, British family, new woman’s freedom, and the everlasting male discourse through the body experience of female body. No matter in the distant African colonial family, the mixed relationship between the black and the white, or the new woman free from family duties in modern family of London, women are still under the judgment of male discourse, and their bodies are also under the examination of man. The white woman is controlled not only by male in colonial family, the black man is also unhappy to follow white woman’s direction, and they even get new voice or identity by “touching” white woman’s body. What’s more, doctors take part in the defending of male discourse in families with their professional knowledge and medical authorities. However, heroines in Lessing’s works are not writing the body experience of women to oppose man, but to seek a harmonious way to get along with man despite the conflicts between the two genders. That leads to the conclusion: what the new woman pursues is the return to tradition.In all, the paper explores the power discourses through body narratives in Lessing’s works and argues how body represents the contemporary spirit and spiritual outlook of the colonial society as well as the empire center in the middle of the 20 th century. This paper, to certain extent, is to free Doris Lessing from the narrow interpretation as a woman writer, and reveal her humanist nature. Body is not the start, or the end, it is the object depicted and penetrated by power. It is the object regulated and punished by social dominant ideology, which consequently illustrates the presentation of the social worries and undertakings of intellectuals and poets.