Space And Self In Doris Lessing’s Major Fiction

Doris Lessing is acclaimed as one of the best women writers of the age. Hernovels have drawn continuous critical attention, and brought a wide range of scholarlycomments of critics from home and abroad. But for a long time, the space issue in herworks has not been sufficiently discussed. This dissertation is meant to make asystematic study of space in relation with self in Lessing’s three major novels: TheGrass is Singing, The Golden Notebook and The Four-Gated City. It attempts toexamine the nature and quality of the space, subcategorized into the social spaceincarnated into various particular spaces and the recurring house in all the threenovels embedded with the potentiality for a real personal space, in relation with thestate and growth of the individual’s self. It is intended to find the consistence andvariation in Lessing’s observation of space in its relation with self. The other intentionis to discover the change in the relation between space and self, the social space andthe house, the social self and the true self revealed in the three novels. Finally, thedissertation tentatively suggests a correspondence between the features of Lessing’sconcern about space and self and the development in her thought and philosophy.The discussion is conducted mainly with recourse to the spatial theories of HenryLefebvre, Michel Foucault, Edward Soja and Wesley Kort. The dissertation adoptsLefebvre’s definition of space: space is a product. This definition, with the emphasison the social character of space, is the most approximate to the implications of thespace in the fiction of Lessing, an intensely socially committed writer. MichelFoucault foregrounds the power aspect of space. Society of surveillance is a result ofensuring the operation of power through the control of space. Both Lefebvre’s socialcharacter and Foucault’s power aspect of space suggest a dominant social space withinclination to possess and control, unfavorable to the development of the individual’sparticular self. Therefore both of their theories are embedded with a call for a space ofdifference, Lefebvre’s lived space and Foucault’s heterotopias. This call for adifferential space is extended and systematized by Soja into his thirdspace, aninvisible space which accentuates a radical openness. The significance of thethirdspace lies particularly in its emphasis on the ongoing process, the implication ofthe incessant breakthrough and an embrace of endless possibilities. The house in thethree major novels of Lessing conceives a potentiality for Soja’s thirdspace in the form of the real personal space. This dissertation uses it to mean a space ofself-discovery with reference to Kort’s explanation of it as a space where one can befree from the determinations of social categories and identity constructions.The first chapter explores the space of surveillance and the repressed self in TheGrass Is Singing with recourse to Foucault’s theory of the panoptic mechanism in thesociety of surveillance. The omnipresent surveillant gaze of patriarchy and colonialracism produces and constantly strengthens the social space of confinement. Byexamining the store in the dorps, the town with its surveillance in the form of gossip,and the farm in the veld, with the analysis of the characters’ action and response inthese spaces, this chapter demonstrates the confining quality of the social space andthe various distortion of self. It finds the space of confinement so fortified that thehouse is pervaded with the internalized faceless gaze which dispossesses the house ofits privacy and independence, its right as an exception and thus the potential for areal personal space. Such a strong social space with its unswerving demand forconformity decides the subjugation of the individual’s social self over his unique trueself as well as his lack of consciousness which deprives his ability to take positiveaction to transform the house into a real personal place for his self-integration. Thus,the house remains a space of subordinate other exposed to the surveillance of society,witnessing the increasingly approaching destruction of its dweller’s self. Theubiquitous presence of the surveillance both in the social space and the house diveststhe individual of his possibility to discover a real personal space for the rebalance ofhis distorted self in either, and leaves a monolithic space of surveillance inhabited bya population with their repressed self.The second chapter is focused on the analysis of the space of alienation ofeveryday life in its relation with the divided self in The Golden Notebook. Byanalyzing the main elements of the social space of modern everyday life, theworkplace, the political site and the gender space, this chapter reveals the displacingproperty of the social space with people suffering from the fragmentation of self. Allthe efforts to reintegrate the divided self in these particular spaces only bring a moresevere division. In a space of rampant alienation, there is faint possibility to discover areal personal place in the social space. The flat as a potential for self-integration inthis novel bears complex quality. The intended personal space is consciously madeinto a space of compartmentalization, symbolically expressed by Anna’scompartmentalization of her self into four notebooks, which is the very prevalent mode in the social space that results in the fragmentary self. Consequently, it is actednot as an initiation into the reaffirmation of self but as a rite-of-passage into thedisintegration of self. Thus, the flat is built into the reproduction of the social space ofdisplacement, where even the more private dream space and the intimate sexuality aredivested the possibility for a real personal space in which the dweller can transcendalienation and reintegrate division. However, despite the general negative nature, theflat takes on positive quality in that it is tinted with the spirit of freedom,independence and self-assertion of its dwellers. And more importantly, its positiveproperty lies, paradoxically, in its participation in driving the dweller into thedisintegration of self, through which the dweller obtains a glimpse of the truth of theself with the collapse of various dichotomies.The third chapter deals with Lessing’s thirdspace in its relation with thedissolved and revived self in The Four-Gated City. As for the social space in itsrelation with the individual’s self, the dominant quality remains uncongenial as isshown by the examination of the deteriorated physical condition of the city, thehierarchical permeation in the café and restaurant, and the homogenizing actualizationin the consulting room and the mental hospital, all of which conspire to cancel theindividual’s particularity and dissolve his insistence on his true self and hence thefinal general abnegation of self. Much of this chapter is devoted to the exploration ofthe house as the space of difference which contributes to the rejuvenation of the self.The major three houses in this novel manifests distinct nature of the thirdspace as thespace of difference, namely, to accommodate difference and strongly insist on theirdifference; to highlight the collapse between reason and unreason among other falsedichotomies and divisions and they also take on the quality of a “site of resistance”.And what they have in common is that they provide a real personal space where thedwellers approach their true self. This chapter also observes the relation betweenspace and self, the social space and the dwelling, the social self and the true self. Itfinds Lessing in this novel begins to emphasize the interaction and theinterdependence between these apparent oppositions and implies the idea thatdissolving one’s self in serving the others is part of the journey to approach one’s trueself.The conclusion of the dissertation reviews the major arguments in each chapter.A holistic examination of Lessing’s presentation of space in its relation with selfscattered in each of the three novels reveals the consistence and variation in her observation of space. The overall space in Lessing’s major fiction is a space of self,saturated with her humanistic concern for the individual’s self under the pressure ofthe strong society. Lessing is consistent in her criticism of the social space in itsnegative relation with the self and the house is endowed with the dynamic variation inits quality as its relation with the self manifests a gradual shift from negative topositive. The conclusion also includes the observation of the change in the relationbetween space and self, the social space and the house, the social self and the true self.Finally, the conclusion summarizes the trajectory of Lessing’s thought and belief andsuggests a correspondence between her evolving observation of space and self and theongoing development of her philosophy and worldview.