Women’s Ways Out Of Otherness Towards Freedom-a Study Of Females As The Other In The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing (1919-2013), one of the most outstanding woman writers in Britainin the20th century, is honorably regarded as an “epicist of female experience”.Represented by her The Golden Notebook which wins for her high appraisal from criticsand readers all over the world, Lessing shows her great concern over modern women byrepresenting and analyzing in details their living conditions and inner emotions.Though Lessing denies having shaped The Golden Notebook into a feminist work,readers can still find that, focused on female consciousness and centered on women’spursuit of freedom, this novel tries to reveal the construction of self-identity on the partof the female characters. According to the theory of the Other, subjectivity is defined incontrast to Otherness. This thesis takes The Golden Notebook written by Doris Lessingas the object of study, trying to explore how the female characters fight to break awayfrom their status as the Other in love and marriage by analyzing the conditions of theirlives, the causes of their losing subjectivity and becoming the Other as well as their wayout of Otherness in light of the theory of Simon de Beauvoir in her The Second Sex.In The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing describes the predicaments of Marion,Anna and Molly in their marriage, love affairs and motherhood. Among them, thetraditional housewife Marion devotes herself to the care of the whole family, but shesuffers the control and betrayal of her husband, which makes her feel miserable. The“free women” Anna and Molly, though staying away from the bondage of marriage andgaining economic independence, are not free at all. Ann loves her lover almost blindly,but men’s indifference and selfishness in love and sexuality hurts her. Molly isoppressed by the burden of motherhood, especially by the guilt of her son’s loss of sight.The novel describes the plights of the modern women, revealing their positions as theOther in different forms. However, these women are not born but are alienated as theOther because of the oppression by the femininity, the patriarchal systems, the heavy burden of motherhood and the social customs. Fortunately, these women don’t submit tothe status as the Other; instead, they try to pursue freedom with their rebellious spirit. Inthe end, they find ways out of Otherness toward freedom, especially freedom of theirsouls. The traditional housewife Marion breaks away from the bondage of marriage andachieves self-worth by engaging in charities in the society with the help of Tommy.Anna gets subjectivity in love through mutual acceptance and respect between her andher lover Saul after experiencing conflicts with him. Molly chooses to return tomarriage with a new understanding of marriage and freedom. All of these femalecharacters get to understand the significance of mutual understanding and respectbetween men and women in fighting against patriarchy and femininity and getting theirsubjectivity in order to be released from Otherness and gain access to real freedom.