The Mother-daughter Relationship In Doris Lessing’s Novels

As a key figure in literature of the20th century, the winner of Nobel Prize for Literature in2007, Doris Lessing has been seen as a feminist, a communist and a mystic. However, the scholarly interpretation has been confined to her feminism and any other extreme tendencies, and scant attention has been paid to her idea of women’s double roles as a mother and a daughter.This thesis interprets Doris Lessing from the perspective of the mother-daughter relationship. By analyzing three of her representative works, it aims to convey to the readers that Doris Lessing has been always trying to seek self-realization and complement through her role as a woman. From Mary, Anna to Jane, Lessing portrayed a growing path of women, and she targeted at the emotional expression between mother and daughter, and the thesis tries to figure out the influence of the mother on the daughter, and her thinking about this kind of relationship. What Lessing tried to tell us is her own experience as well as any others, and her great effort made herself fulfill her identity as well as her heroines.