| Doris Lessing is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary British writer. She gives worldwide readers a remarkable literary production with her multi-genred themes, independent vision and bold experiments. Deeply concerned about the fate of human beings, she is attempting to delineate possible solutions to people's and world's problems. The Golden Notebook, with a daring attempt involving psychoanalysis, social criticism and form experimentation, undoubtedly her most acclaimed and innovative masterpiece, made her on the list of nominees for the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996. Mostly it is called'the bible of the Women's Movement', but the label distressed her, and she is disappointed that early reviews of the novel rarely noted its experimental structure.The book begins with a conventional short novel,"Free Women", which is interrupted by fragments of notebooks. The pattern,"Free Women"and the four notebooks, in succession of black, red, yellow and blue, repeats four times. Then the golden notebook comes and the book ends with a final"Free Women"episode. This seemingly chaotic structure is carefully planned and it is a very highly structured book and its meaning is in the shape. So this thesis intends to analyze the particular structure and its construction to themes in The Golden Notebook, owing to Lessing's major aim"to shape a book which would make its own comment, a wordless statement: to talk through the way it was shaped".With the beginning of a general view of Lessing's life, literary career and various debates on The Golden Notebook, this thesis focuses on interpreting the chaotic and meaningful structure from three aspects: Particular web structure; Combination of traditional and untraditional; and Multidimensional non-linear arrangement. The sections of"Free Women"and the notebooks are all web spots interconnecting in the large web of The Golden Notebook, and"Free Women"as the longitudinal line and the notebooks as latitudinal line, which is like a web, covering the content. Lessing's innovative experiment in writing makes this transitional text combination of traditional and untraditional, not only in narrative, genres, and style, but also in language usage, time and some other things. The existence of discrepancies in information and events, presenting in"Free Women"and the notebooks, challenges the traditional arrangement, and the multidimensional non-linear arrangement is further shown by the complexity of the time scheme and the circularity of the beginning and the ending.The meaningful structure reflects the chaotic outer world, and indicates people's fragmented inner world. A further attempt is made to deal with the multiple layers and images of the protagonist, Anna, from three perspectives: Anna in"Free Women"and Annas in notebooks; Male Annas; and Anna in dreams. Through the compare of Anna in"Free Women"and Annas in notebooks, we can better understand Anna's conviction that the division of her life into four notebooks will stave off the chaos of contemporary existence and enable her to retain a concept of wholeness. Male Annas are the other aspects of Anna beyond her gender, the dark side of the people's mind at that time. Anna also invites us to see her as a multiple and chameleon figure in her dreams. The structure itself illustrates best Anna's process of attempting to bring meaning...
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