A Study Of Mary’s Ethical Identity, Ethical Confusion And Ethical Situation In The Grass Is Singing

Doris Lessing is not only a creative and brilliant female writer in Englishliterature, but also a Noble Prize winner in Literature．Her first novel The Grass IsSinging was published in1951, which became a success shortly after it came out．The present study aims to analyze the novel with ethical literary criticism, as thistheory is an approach to literary criticism combined with the introduction of ethicalmethods.This paper is divided into seven chapters: Chapter One is an introduction about the author Doris Lessing. First, it gives abrief account on Doris Lessing’s life story, her writing experiences, her majorconcerns, her literary achievements, and critical reviews on her works. Then itintroduces Lessing’s ethical thoughts and the paper.Chapter Two is a literature review about The Grass Is Singing. Since the novelhas come out, it has received different kinds of interpretations. So The Grass IsSinging has received a lot of criticism from critics and scholars both at home andabroad. And most critics focus on Mary’s tragedy from the social and herpsychological problems. Some Chinese scholars also show their interest in the novel.Their studies on The Grass Is Singing can be mainly classified into six kinds, such aspostcolonialism, feminism, ecocriticism, ecofeminism, psychology, archetypalapproach, deconstruction as well as Marxism and Jungian unconscious theories.Chapter Three is an introduction about the theoretical framework. Here itexplains the ethical literary criticism in detail. In addition, the representative theoriesand writers who made their contributions to the development of ethical literary theoryare also mentioned.Chapter Four is to analyze Mary’s tragedy from her ethical identity in thenovel．As an old-aged girl, Mary still didn’t get married. This led to some gossipsabout her. In order to help her get out of trouble, she hurried to marry Dick withoutknowing him very well. Then Mary’s ethical identity has changed from a single girlto a man’s wife. This is one of the factors that lead to her tragedy.Chapter Five is to interpret her tragedy from her ethical confusion. Aftermarriage, Mary couldn’t bear the boring and dull life in the country. Then one of herservants named Moses appeared in her life. She found passion and hope of life in him,so she couldn’t help loving him deeply. Since she was married Dick, she shouldn’thave loved other man except her husband. However, she ignored the ethical rules andhad her servant as her lover, which was a kind of ethical confusion. This affected herlater marriage life deeply and resulted in her death.Chapter Six is to explore her tragedy from the then ethical situation between thewhite and the black. At that time, the black people’s social status was very low andthey were always treated unequally. They could only be servants of the white men and they were always beaten or even killed freely by their hosts. In the novel, Mary hadlove affairs with a black servant. However, the love or mutual attraction between ablack man and a white woman was seriously forbidden, which was regarded as thethen so-called ethical situation for both white and black people, hence deepeningMary’s tragedy.Chapter Seven is a conclusion of the thesis. In all, with ethical literary criticism,this essay tries to analyze the causes of Mary’s tragedy from her ethical identity,ethical confusion and ethical situation. At first, Mary’s ethical identity was changedfrom a single girl to a man’s wife. But after marriage, she loved her servant, whichwas an ethical confusion. Moreover, at that time she had love affairs with a black man,which seriously violated the then ethical situation. Therefore, the three aspects lead toher tragedy. Through the analysis, we can get that everyone living in the world shouldattach great importance to his ethical identity and ethical situation, meanwhile try toavoid ethical confusion.