The Post-colonial Criticism On Doris Lessing's Early Novels Of Africa Theme

Doris Lessing (1919——) is a British writer, the Winner of Nobel Literature Prize of 2007, who is well-known as "the greatest writer after Virginia Woolf". As a writer who has great social solicitude, she has engaged herself in the novel-writing more than 50 years. Her novels, including The Grass Is Singing in 1950 and Alfred and Emily in 2008, have covered almost all the significant social problems in the 20th century.Her early novels of Africa theme refer to the works from 1950 to 1961. These include The Grass Is Singing, The Children of Violence' Series(Martha Quest, A Proper Marriage, A Ripple from the Storm), A Proper Marriage, Retreat to Innocence, The Habit of Loving and two collections of short stories:This Was the Old Chiefs Country and Tuan Diary.This thesis chooses the most representative four works in the early creation as the objects of this study, which are two novels The Grass Is Singing and Martha Quest, and two collections of short stories This Was the Old Chiefs Country and Tuan Diary.This thesis consists of three parts:Introduction, Text and Conclusion.The first part is an introduction. It mainly introduces the novelist Doris Lessing and her novels, the research situation about her at home and abroad, and points out the significance, the innovation and the research method of this thesis. This introduction is divided into three parts according to their own topics. In the first part, Doris Lessing's novels are generally divided into three stages by topic and artistic characteristics. The second part provides a general summary about the study on Doris Lessing at home and abroad. It is concluded that the studies abroad are mainly conducted with the focus on her works and on the writer herself, while domestic study includes the researches on the writer, on her works, and on their translations. Therefore, we can see at present the study in China and abroad on her early novels of Africa theme, especially short stories, is far from enough. The third part discusses the significance of this research:Firstly, it is an overall study on her early novels of Africa theme; Secondly, it provides a typical case for the post-colonial criticism; Thirdly, It explores the Dual Perspective of her early novels of Africa theme; Fourthly, it studies Lessing's motives behind her creation. In addition, this part also introduces research methods that are the post-colonial criticism, close reading, social-historical criticism, comparative criticism and space theory. The second part is the text which is the core of this thesis. It can be subdivided into three chapters.The first chapter explains post-colonial nature of her early novels of Africa theme. Section One defines some terms related to Colonization and Post-colonization. Section Two is an analysis of two characteristics of Doris Lessing's novels of Africa theme: autobiographical color and Dual Perspective. Moreover, it compares her novels with the works by Kipling, Orwell, Dinesen and Gordimer.The second chapter is a postcolonial interpretation of Doris Lessing's early novels of Africa theme. Section One makes an endeavor to analyze the social space with the colonial metaphor in the farm and the city. Section Two has discussed survival conditions of the "marginal man" and their characteristics from the aspects of the colonists and the colonized. It first talks about the colonists who are regarded as the men chasing money, the women following their husbands and the children obedient or rebellious. Then they are discussed as the black men guarding their native culture, the black men catering for European culture and those who are against racial discrimination.The third chapter is about the motives of her creation. It approaches the formation of Doris Lessing's uniqueness from her living experience in Africa, the writer's responsibility and the influence of western cultural trends of thought upon.The last part is to draw a conclusion. This part analyses the inspiration and verifying function of Doris Lessing's early novels of Africa theme for colonial writers.