An Interpretation Of Lessing’s Androgynous Idea As Presented In Her Two Works

As one of the greatest21st century British women writers, Doris Lessing isregarded as an evergreen tree in English literature. Lessing has published a lot ofworks of different subjects and unique styles. As a female writer, Lessing not onlyexperienced the discrimination and prejudice which the traditional society has laidagainst women, but also recognized the repressions which the patriarchal society lefton women. In her various works, she created many images of women who requesttheir rights and status in the traditional society. So in many people’s minds, Lessing isa feminist. However, it is totally wrong. In order to gain women’s rights and create aworld without division, she did not advocate women to fight against men, but hopedto gain women’s rights and create a world without division by the joint efforts of menand women. This coincided with Virginal Woolf’s Androgynous idea.Woolf put forward the Androgynous idea in her A Room of One’s Own. Shethought it was the same as which Coleridge had called that a great mind isAndrogynous. Through her works, we can find that Lessing had accepted this ideaeven though she didn’t clearly refer such words directly. And Lessing still thought itwas the best way to get rid of the “sexual war” and the most effective prescription torealize women’s freedom.Through the rereading of Doris Lessing’s two famous works, the short storyHabit of Loving and novel The Golden Notebook, the thesis analyzes Lessing’sAndrogynous idea which reflected in her works. And through the analysis of theseworks, it has a deeper understanding of Lessing’s androgynous idea, discussesWoolf’s influence of this idea on her and reveals the connotation of this idea. Finallythe thesis summarily points out that these two works fully reflected Lessing’sAndrogynous idea. It can eliminate the misunderstanding of Lessing’s feministidentity and shed a new light on deepening our understanding of this thought andpromotes the value of androgynous idea in real life.