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Urban Space In Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook And The Diaries Of Jane Somers

Posted on:2011-10-10Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:M Z ChangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360302499478Subject:English Language and Literature
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Doris Lessing is one of the most important female writers in modern times. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. She has written many books in diverse styles and they are widely studied in the west. Focusing on The Golden Notebook and The Diaries of Jane Somers, this thesis is to analyze the contents about city and space which affect different female characters in modern society.The first chapter introduces the cause and effect of space theory and how it was applied in literature analysis. Space theory is put forward by French philosopher Henri Lefebvre and his book The Production of Space set the base for the theory. In his book, the space is not only the so called geographical space. He holds that urban space is very important in the development of human surviving and developing. After Lefebvre, another philosopher Edward Soja extended the scale of space theory and advances the "third space theory" which is a great stride in theory. In his opinion, the space here has already exceeded the limit of time and space and truly liberated the parochialism of the previous space in people's mind. It spread to every where of human daily living.Based on the two novels The Golden Notebook and The Diaries of Jane Somers, the second chapter analyzes the age space in these books by applying the space theory. By analyzing the text of the two novels, this will introduce the middle-aged space in The Golden Notebook and the senile space in The Diaries of Jane Somers under the standard of age space. In the production of the two spaces, the different roles of the middle-aged and the elderly compose different spaces only in name; but actually the contents of the two spaces are almost the same. The representation of the middle-aged and the senile space aims to show the old women's living state and attract more attention from the whole society.On the foundation of the second chapter, the third chapter further discovers the inner relationship of the women in urban space. As women play different roles in marriage, family and work, this chapter is going to depict women as a group who encounters similar problems and crisis in their life. And it will also find the existing form of space in urban city London; analyzing the female space in many different ways; discovering the female roles in the city. All those will pave the way for the readers to find the meaning of Lessing's novels and will help them to understand her female characters.The part of conclusion points out that Lessing's writing of female space is closely related to women and her own life experience. All the spaces in this thesis direct the women's life and fate. Lessing cares about each period of a woman's growing. It is evident that her writing is female writing and she represents the voice of modern women. With philosophical sophistication, artistic experimentation, her concerns for women enables her writing to be a female writing.
Keywords/Search Tags:Doris Lessing, the space theory, the age space, the urban space, the female space
PDF Full Text Request
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