A Jungian Study Of Mary's Tragedy In The Grass Is Singing

Doris Mary Tayler Lessing(1919—present) , the winner of the Nobel Prize for 2007, is reputed as one of the most extraordinary post-war woman writer of English literature, and one of the most controversial. She is noticeable for her peculiar attitudes towards life, culture and existence of human being. The persistent theme throughout Lessing's novels of the search for self, for an understanding of what one is, is the twentieth-century existential quest. From the very beginning, Doris has believed that consciousness of the self must not be neglected; neither must it overwhelm the essential connection to the outer world.The Grass is Singing published in 1950 is Lessing's first and a successful novel. It traces a story of a white conventional woman Mary killed by her black servant Moses. This novel is usually seen as chiefly about the racial discrimination and miscegenation, and to some degree it is. However, it is not simply a political novel; Lessing's main intention is not to explore the different ideologies and her support the autonomy of Africa. Combined with what she most concerns, the author think in this novel, Doris Lessing probes the subject of existence, that is, recognizing the need for self-knowledge in both its personal and social aspects, and ultimately suggest some meaning which transcends self.This thesis aims to reinterpret the book through Jung's psychology, revealing that woman should not always play the roles set by society, she should recognize herself and the society and bravely face the most feared and dark side of the unconscious.The thesis is mainly divided into five parts:Introduction gives the general information of the novelist Doris Lessing, the novel The Grass is Singing, the research achievement and the critical responses to the novel.Chapter One discusses Mary's psychic complex: her emotional frustration. The facts we are given about Mary's childhood all illustrate the origin of her impersonality and her distaste for sex which was repressed in her personal unconscious. Then the cruel colonial culture, the class and gender discrimination repressed in all the white collective unconscious is the root of her racial discrimination and her alienation. Chapter Two analyzes Mary's failure of individuation: her insanity. On the one hand, Mary'lack of self-knowledge leads to her mismatched marriage; on the other hand, Mary's lack of will and her reluctance to descend make her unable to reconcile her psychic conflicts: the conflict between her submission to and defiance of male authority and the conflict between her personal and collective unconscious—her love and hatred for the houseboy, Moses, leading to her failure of individuation and sanity.Chapter Three focuses on the description of Mary's symbolic dream images and vision images before her death: the futility of Mary's transcendence. Dream images symbolize Mary's desire-fulfillment, the vision images symbolize Mary's momentary transcendence and prophesize her death.Conclusion summarizes the whole paper, the individual may be influenced by upbringing or social pressure, however, only by self—acknowledging and confronting bravely one's inner realm and not just succumbing to the collective will can an individual obtain a healthy and steady development.