A Way Leading To Freedom

The Golden Notebook is the masterpiece by the English writer Doris Lessing, a writer with special experiences, strong conscience for the society, and great sense of literary mission. She is known as a writer who have deeply analyzed the human life and pointed a way of salvation with moral enthusiasm. The novel, successfully conceiving an image of free women represented by Anna, is incomparable in its analysis of social problems. It is generally regarded by critics as a great literary work describing the growth and liberation of women.Lessing's humanism comes from the perspective of the philosophy of life. As an influential school of philosophy, it holds that the starting-point of all the philosophical studies should be the exploration of the nature and meaning of life of man, which will lead to the knowledge of the whole world. Bergson is one of the leading figures of the philosophy of life. He creates duration, a perspective of psychological time, which is his great contribution to the philosophical field and which also distinguishes him from other thinkers. He regards the true self or "the fundamental self" in duration as continuity and only through intuition can we get to know it. Most of the reflections on life expressed in The Golden Notebook are based on the views of the philosophy of life. Everything in the novel has become part of her philosophical views and has important function in the construction of the theme.The thesis attempts to explore the theme of The Golden Notebook from the perspective of Bergson's philosophy. The purpose is discussed through peeling the layers of false selves or personas to reveal the true self in duration, which is the wholeness of being. It reveals the living conditions of women at the changing and splitting times, by analyzing the image of free woman, represented by Anna in the novel, from two aspects:emotional life and psychological life. This paper is mainly divided into five chapters. The first chapter is a brief introduction to the writer Doris Lessing and her works. In this chapter the author will find out some affinities between The Golden Notebook and Bergson's Philosophy of life. The second chapter is a brief view of Bergson's philosophy. The third chapter is an interpretation of the free women's lives, illustrating the lofty ideals and the crisis in the reality facing the free women's lives from their emotional experiences and spiritual worlds. The fourth chapter puts emphasis on the reflection of the free women, and will re-define and choose their life path in the end with the enlightenment from others. In this chapter, Bergson's philosophy of life is taken as its subject, which mainly explains the theme—the process from chaos and fragments to wholeness and unity in The Golden Notebook, and explains the freedom the author pursuits through this novel. The last chapter sums up the whole thesis. The thesis attempts to make a more complete understanding of the free women in The Golden Notebook by means of Bergson's philosophy, thus deepening the reflection on freedom and humanity of Doris Lessing.