| The Golden Notebook is Loris Lessing’s masterpiece which was published in1962. Many scholars have analyzed it from many perspectives, such as feminism, psychology and so on. The thesis tries to apply in Erich Fromm’s views on freedom which had put forward in Escape from Freedom in1941to analyze the novel from the theme-freedom. Free women in the novel were just caught into negative freedom, so they were go into the wrong way and were remote to positive freedom. In the modern society, people feel puzzled and frustrated when they cannot deal with the matters of life. The flashy free women also cannot avoid falling into negative freedom due to all kinds of matters. When they realize that they are caught into negative freedom, most of people will take all kinds of measures to make them get rid of the plights, but their efforts were in vain. Therefore, people should adapt to their state actively, work spontaneously and love other people without rewards to get positive freedom, gaining a happy life. The author wants to analyze all kinds of matters that free women faced in the novel so as to give modern women some apocalypses how to get the freedom.This thesis consists of three major parts:introduction, body and conclusion:The introduction includes a brief introduction of Doris Lessing and a survey of studies on The Golden Notebook.The body part has four chapters, dealing with how free women get rid of the plights with negative freedom and get real freedom with positive freedom.The first part introduces the theoretical approaches to pursuing real freedom. At first, I make a summary of the development of freedom. This part gives a detail depiction of Fromm’s freedom conception-negative freedom and positive freedom. Furthermore it applies this conception to the novel in a general way.The second part introduces two free women in the novel-Anna and Molly. In the meanwhile, it discusses the ironical sense of free women.The third part further talks about dilemma of free women under negative freedom, telling the difficulties and confusions of female after they were caught in negative freedom in the process of seeking freedom.In the fourth part. I analyze four essential ways to get positive freedom. Love and productive work are two essential ways which were put forward by Fromm. Self-identity recognition and satisfaction of associations with others can be treated as another two approaches to realize positive freedom. Then I analyze how the characters with a terrible state use these methods to cast off negative freedom and get positive freedom. After reaching positive freedom, they also realize their individuality, even though they return to a traditional life finally. Because positive freedom can help people live actively and realize their potentialities fully.The conclusion analyzes the reasons why "Freedom Syndrome" appears in modern society and the features which the people own. People in this group have met the same matters which the characters had faced in the novel. When caught in negative freedom, they have used all kinds of approaches to escape this freedom. The purpose that people go after freedom is to gain a happy life. Even if caught in negative freedom, people still insist on seeking freedom. Therefore, modern people should make others recognize their identities and get a harmonious relationship with others, then work spontaneously and love others without rewards to realize positive freedom, living a happy life. |
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