| Doris Lessing is one of the most original British female writers in the twentieth century. Though her attempts at literary composition include novels, short stories, non-fiction, poetry and drama, she is most famous as a novelist. When Doris Lessing the novelist is concerned, there remains a controversy over the classification of Doris Lessing. Some critics add her name to the list of classical realists, others note the inconsistency of her works, and trace the formal and ideological development of them. Some themes like Communism, Feminism, Sufism, politics, dreams and prophecy, and so on really occur in her certain works, but her commitment to them is provisional rather than eternal, for it is change itself that she is concerned with. The impulse of change in her accounts for critics' bewilderment at her writing style.One of Lessing's important quintet, Children of Violence, Marks her turning from realism to other kinds of writing. The novel begins with Martha's searching for something new, and ends with the loss of the importance of the heroine as an individual, and with the emerging of a new-breed of children, who carry on the human race better than their forebears. This novel series has attracted the attention of many critics, and the most popular criticism on it is conducted from the perspectives of Feminism, Mysticism and politics. This study, through the analysis of its main themes, explores the existential elements in the novel series.This paper consists of seven chapters, with Chapter One making a brief introduction to Doris Lessing's works, to Existentialism, and to thefour important existentialists: Karl Jaspers, Grabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. This chapter also points out the several stages Martha undergoes in her quest, and the existential theory corresponding to the themes in these different stages.Chapter Two starts with a summary of the novel series, and then comes to the analysis of Martha's feeling of being confined and her aspiration for freedom. Martha feels suffocated by the kind of dull, repetitive life her parents live, meanwhile, the separation among the local people embitters her. Martha dreams of a new type of life, the essence of which is freedom that is identical with freedom stressed by Existentialism.Chapter Three focuses on the first stage of Martha's quest through her relationship with others. Her quest is based on her belief that her freedom will be attained through love between her and a real man, or through becoming member of an ideal community. Such belief finds ground in Sartre's ideal love and Marcel's "fraternal man". Her failure again explains Sartre's "the facticity" of man, the existentialists' opposition against the collective, and Sartre's view of "the other".Chapter Four deals with the second stage of Martha's experience. Martha's failure in her quest renders her in a difficult condition. Though deeply disappointed with the reality presented to her, she is in hope. Martha's hope resembles Marcel's hope born in a state of captivity. Marcel holds that a margin of incertitude remains in one's existence, and any mode of existence is not the final one, and hope is necessary.Chapter Five deals with the third stage of Martha's quest. Martha leaves the town for England, where she attains an absolute freedom, andher awareness of the danger underlying such freedom makes her return to her fellow human beings. The very returning finds explanation in Sartre's view that human beings are beings in the world.In Chapter Six, the final stage of Martha's quest is studied. In her exploration of something new, she attains a new sort of understanding. This theme shares similarity with Jasper's view that existence lies in exploration. With her exploration going deeper, Martha experiences the development of her intuitive power, and she charts a totally new area of the human mind and experiences a kind of mystical force, which shares features with Heidegger's Being.In Chapter Seven, this paper comes to its conclusion, in whic...
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