Ultimate Quest For Harmonious Co-existence: An Ecofcminist Reading Of Doris Lessing’s Three Main Science Fictions

Doris Lessing，winner of the2007Nobel Prize in Literature，is a literary giantwith consummate writing talent. Mellow and exquisite ideas flow through her works,inspiring an eternal literary vitality and winning her an undisputed title of “evergreentree”. Abundant critical articles on Lessing’s works have emerged, while scantattentions are paid to her science fictions.Rounding into her declining years, the old gentle woman still strolls along theverge of real and fantasy. Uncanny sci-fi factors, dismal gothic air and eerily ancientfables mingle together in her sci-fis. This paper attempts to interpret Lessing’s threescience fictions The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five, Mara and Dann,an Adventure, The Cleft from the ecofeminist perspective. Ecofeminism endeavors tosmash the ossified "patriarchal" dual system and set up a new pattern of relations ofco-existence between man and man, man and nature. Although the three fictions arecompletely different in style, their common nostalgic yearning for harmony happensto coincide with ecofeminist kernel thought.First, this paper explores the permeated ecological panic in the three sciencefictions, pointing out that anthropocentrism is the root of it. Lessing uses an almostcallous mood to depict an alienated world. Readers are appalled by the bleakwasteland in Mara and Dann, the biochemical threat in The Marriages between ZonesThree, Four and Five and the ferocious killings in The Cleft.Second, this paper explores the intimate relationship between women and nature, aiming to penetrate the dazzling shell of Lessing’s sci-fis and hold fast to itsecofeminist core.Then, this paper tries to unveil Lessing’s hard journey of deconstruction. In thethree fictions, the heroines, once submissive nobodies, cast off their obscurity andturn into shining host. Witty Mara and tough Allth present unique temperament whichthe past female images are devoid of. Men, inturn, lose their sting in aggression anddomination. Unprecedentedly, woman in the Cleft becomes the father of mankind.More strikingly, women can reproduce without men’s involvement; they can have ababy with the help of the full moon only. Silencing the strong and making the weakspeak release strong destructive force and thus become a weapon for Lessing to smashthe fixed patriarchal binary system.Last, this paper argues further that Lessing doesn’t confine herself to thetraditional feminism. She doesn’t want to replace the male-centered system bybuilding a new “female-centered” binary system. For her, harmonious co-existence isthe only way out. The marriages between zones three, four and five usher in a “SereneEden”, persistent pursuit of “oasis” in Mara and Dann unfolds human’s return trip, thewar between men and women comes to an end with the collapse of the cleft.Unexpectedly, Lessing gives us such a tender conclusion beneath the subversivesurface. The three works illuminate both a journey of overthrowing patriarchaldualism and a journey of rebuilding harmonious ecology, thus, they are definitely asample dyed with ecofeminist color of life.