Deconstruction Of Binary Opposition In Doris Lessing's The Grass Is Singing

Doris Lessing, who was granted as the forerunner of literature, is the most important contemporary English women writer after Woolf, and also the oldest winner of Nobel Prize for Literature. Lessing's works, which have a wide range of subjects and profound themes, exert an extensive international influence on the world. And most of her works have already been translated into a variety of languages and won awards many times. The Grass Is Singing is Lessing's first famous novel, and it is acknowledged as the most outstanding English novel after the First World War. The novel arouses critics'extensive researches since it has been first published. The early critics abroad mainly study the tragedy of individual disintegration and separation from the perspective of psychology and psychoanalysis, and also as an emotional novel, it is interpreted from the view of the dialectic relationship among the individual, the living environment and social systems to the point of Marxism. Domestic researchers mostly regard it as a colonialist novel, the critical theories are focused on the "feminism", "psychoanalysis", "postcolonialism", etc.; the representative studies are focused on "racial discrimination", "the colonial rule", "conditions of poor white settlers", "women's living conditions", etc.. To fully understand the deep connotation of the novel, the readers can read it from three aspects of civilization/nature, men/women, and white/black by the aid of literary theories of deconstruction.Binary opposition is rooted in hierarchy in which one term is privileged over another marginalized one, for instance, meaning/form, west/east, man/woman, etc. The former term has always been central while the latter marginalized. Jacques Derrida questions the dominance of the concepts; he would like to topple the foundations of conceptual domination—logocentrism. Deconstructionism is Derrida's subversive approach to western philosophy, in which he inverts and dissolves conceptual hierarchies to show that the repressed or marginalized term has already influenced the privileged or central one. The deconstruction of three pairs of binary opposition is obvious throughout The Grass Is Singing. Firstly, Lessing illustrates the deconstruction of binary opposition between civilizations and nature. The white settlers, who can be considered a symbol of civilization, destroy African grasslands after their arrival, and eventually are revenged by the veldt. So we advocate the establishment of a harmonious ecological relationship between man and nature. Secondly, it refers to the deconstruction of binary opposition between men and women. From the profound interpretation of women's physical and mental condition by Mary's case, Lessing reveals that logos are the root of women's suffrage and tragedy. Besides, the male characters such as Dick and Moses are also in the same depressed situation. Therefore, not only women but men are victims of logos. In a society full of oppositions and contradictions, neither male superiority nor feminism is the way to solve the problem. Only by the establishment of a harmonious relationship between men and women, can human beings be of sound character and integrity in the disintegrating society. Last but not least, it comes to the deconstruction of binary opposition between white and black. In the colonial background, the white are born to be superior while the black natives are reduced to be the helpless "Other". The description of white Mary's weakness and empty life, with Dick's weakness and inevitable failure on African land provides a strong contrast with black Moses'positive and strong image; the miserable living conditions of poor white and infighting among the white class are revealed as well, deconstructing logos of white superiority.To sum up, Lessing's works have created varieties of "Other", the marginal images. By deconstructing the traditional binary opposition in her novel, Lessing advocates the elimination of all racial, gender and social class, calls for the equal rights of minority groups in the marginalized roles such as colored people, women, etc., and shows a profound humanitarianism spirit and a dialectic thinking pattern of unity of opposites, expressing a final realization of Utopia ideal that all human beings should be equally living in a liberal democratic society where all cultures are equal.