Free Choices And Actions In Existence Predicament:an Existential Interpretation Of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, The Summer Before The Dark And Love, Again

Doris Lessing is a prestigious writer in contemporary British literature. During her more than fifty years of writing careers, she has written more than seventy works, including novels, poems, bibliographies, essays and other works. Aside from her prolific works, she is also an innovative writer with various themes. In most of her works, Lessing deals with the issues that concern with a human individual’s living state in the lonely, valueless, absurd world from the point of women. The issues Lessing explores in her novels share affinities with what Sartrean existentialism elucidate. The thesis attempts to interpret three of Lessing’s novels at different stages: The Golden Notebook (1962), The Summer before the Dark (1972), and love, again (1996) from the point of view of Sartrean existentialism. Through analyzing the protagonists’ existence and exploring how the absurd world exerts influences on human beings, especially on women, the writer holds that human beings can get spiritual freedom and the meaning of existence through making free choices and taking corresponding responsibilities. The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One includes three aspects of information. Firstly, it introduces Lessing’s life and her works. Secondly, it makes a literary review on her three novels, especially the existentialist analyses of the three novels. Finally, it illustrates the feasibility to interpret Doris Lessing’s three works from the perspective of existentialism and then puts forward framework of the thesis.In Chapter Two, the thesis gives an overview of existentialism, an important philosophical and literary trend in the twentieth century, and introduces some of the existentialist views of Sartre. The basic Sartrean principles are existence, free choice, and responsibility. The world is absurd and life is painful. In Sartre’s philosophy of Existentialism, human being can enjoy freedom through a series of free and constant choices, while at the same time, one should pay for this freedom, and one should shoulder the responsibility and commitment accompanying the freedom. Freedom entails relevant responsibility.In Chapter Three, the thesis analyzes how the chaotic and absurd world exerts influences on the protagonists from the perspective of freedom and existence. After World War Ⅱ, uncertainties affected the society as the traditional values collapse and the political environment was unpredictable, so that people lost their sense of security. People in this chaotic environment were constantly suffering frustration and setbacks. The protagonists in the three novels are respectively at three stages of one’s life:youth, middle age and aging time. Ann Wolf, a young and successful writer in The Golden Notebook questions the significance of writing so that she suffers from the writer’s block; as a woman pursuing for true love. Anna cannot find a responsible man for their love. Anna is an independent woman in economy. However, living in the absurd world, she feels painful and doubts the meaning of existence. Ten years later,Lessing shifts her focus on the living status of housewives. Kate Brown in The Summer Before the Dark is a typical middle-aged housewife. For Kate, the meaning of existence is to care for husband and children. However, Kate suddenly realizes that she is ignored by her husband and grown-up children. With the loss of her self-value, she feels anxious, confused and struggled. The senior people’s emotion is a question which has been ignored for a long time. Twenty years later, seventy-six-year-old Lessing focuses on the professional old women’s emotional dilemma in her late masterpiece lore, again. Being a widow for twenty years or so, Sarah is in love again. However, she feels anguished and confused because of her suffering in childhood and social conventions and restrains for old people.In Chapter Four, the thesis explores how the protagonists at different ages make their choices and find meanings of existence and finally take the corresponding responsibilities when they confront the absurd world from the perspective of freedom, choice and responsibility. After a fierce struggle and reflection, Anna finally confirms and accepts the essence of absurdity in the world. Confronting with the reality, she gets out of confusion and acquires the meaning of existence. Kate leaves her husband and children in the special summer to realize her self-discovery. After a middle-aged woman’s mature reflection in her journey, she regains her self-value and realizes her rebirth in spirit. After a gradual awakening to the significance of love, Sarah gets her authentic freedom in spirit. The protagonists take the corresponding responsibilities after a struggle for freedom, dignity and value.Chapter Five is a concluding part, stating at the underlying theme explored and emphasized in Lessing’s novels is to probe into the profound social significance contained in the novel:the authentic freedom is the freedom to choose.