Exploring Mara’s Personality Development In Mara And Dann:an Adventure From The Perspective Of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Doris Lessing (1919-2013) is one of the most talented British women writers. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2007 because she was "gazing the divided civilization by skepticism, fiery passion and the power of language." The multiple cultural backgrounds of Lessing and multidimensional perspective make her works filled with relatively broad themes. The domestic research on Lessing is mostly using theories like post-colonialism, feminism, Marxism and Sufism to interpret her masterpieces such as Golden Notebook and Grass is Singing while it mostly focuses on the theme research of Lessing’s works abroad. But for a long time, the psychoanalysis of these characters in her works has not been fully discussed. Freud has a far-reaching influence on Lessing which can be traced back to the time when she was in the southern Rhodesia. At the beginning in London, Lessing once had seen the psychological doctor continuously for three years which she considered as a very important thing in life. These three years of experience "saved her life". The research method in this thesis is focusing on Lessing’s late works Mara and Dann:An Adventure (1999) from the perspective of Freud’s psychoanalysis theory. The thesis aims to interpret female characters in the novel, explore the inner world of the characters to peep at their hearts and explore the development of characters’ personalities. Thus it is easy to further understand the deep interpretation of human nature by Lessing.According to Freud’stheory, the key to get healthy personality is to keep the balance of id, ego and superego. This paper reflects the heart journey of life most people in the real world go through by the story in the Mara and Dann:An Adventure that Mara got the strong ego after experiencing the id dominance and the superego dominance and then made the correct choices of life which conformed to the "reality principles". The growing experience of Mara will provide some help to these modern people who struggle with reality and lost himself.This thesis is divided into five parts. The first chapter introduces the author andworks as well as research status of the novel at home and abroad, and makes anoverview of the main theory system of psychoanalytic literary criticism. The second chapter analyzes Mara’s life in Mara and Dann:An Adventure that Mara suffered the death of parentsin childhood and was forced to leave people to begin a fugitive life. On the fugitive way from home to the RockVillage, she had experienced disasters of drought, beasts and flood, etc. The life in RockVillage was more challenging. Although the childhood experiences made Mara’s id deeply depressed, the development of Mara’s personality was profoundly influenced by powerful id in the life of RockVillage.Behaving on the "happy principle", Mara followed the desire of her heart and fell in love with her brother Dann deeply. Even with clansman Emma’s teachings, Mara still wanted to get rid of the bondage of superego.In the third chapter, it analyses the influence of superego on Mara’s personality development when she fled from RockVillage to Chelops and the period of living in it. Social behavior standards and teachers’teaching played a strong role in Mara’s inner world. Mara was aware of her identity and mission and suppressed the desire to be with Dann. The fourth chapter analyzes the tough adjustment of Mara’s ego between id and superego in personality structure from Chelops to Charad. Mara met her lover but was difficult to give up her inner desire for Dann, so she chose to get pregnant with her lover to end the relationship with Dann.On the other hand, Mara didn’t agree with clansman about the advice of the intermarriage with Dann to maintain native blood lineage, so she chose the separation with Dann. Both of the two choices embodied the "reality principle". The fifth chapter is the conclusion part which points out that when Mara hovered between the id and superego, the powerful ego had played a decisive role and avoided the tragedy of personality disorders. Mara finally lived a new life with hope which was exactly due to her balanced personality structure.