Anna’s Existential Predicaments And Corresponding Strategy

Doris Lessing, the well-known contemporary British writer, is regarded as the greatest female writer after Virginia Woolf. Lessing’s representative work The Golden Notebook, which was published in 1962, is acknowledged as one of the 20th century classics of British literature after many years of arguments. Due to this great work, Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the year 2007.The Golden Notebook mainly consists of two parts:one part is a frame novel named The Free Women which tells of the daily life of Anna and Molly; the other part is five notebooks of different colors:the black notebook records Anna’s life in Africa and her consideration about her work Frontier of War; the red notebook is about Anna’s political activities within the British political party; the yellow notebook is Anna’s manuscript of her novel The Shadow of the Third which is written according to her own love experiences; the blue notebook can be regarded as Anna’s private diary which records her emotion and psychological activities about life; the golden notebook is Anna’s choice for her life which signifies her recovery from mental breakdown.As Anna’s life experiences correspond to the existentialism theory to a great extent, the thesis endeavors to combine the novel with the existentialism, aiming not only to provide a relatively new way to understand the meanings of the novel, but also to show Lessing’s profound consideration of human existence. The thesis mainly uses three existentialism notions:absurdity; alienation; free choice and responsibility.The thesis mainly includes six chapters.Chapter One mainly introduces The Golden Notebook’s literary criticism in China and abroad. This chapter also points out the thesis’ study problems, procedure and significance. Chapter Two mainly introduces the existentialist representative Jean-Paul Sartre’s core concepts:absurdity, alienation, free choice and responsibility. Chapter Three analyzes the reflection of absurdity in the novel. Having experienced the absurd life in Africa, in British political party and in her writing career, Anna senses the overwhelming absurdity. Chapter Four vividly describes the alienation theme from Anna’s alienated relationships with her best friend Molly, her daughter and her lover. Chapter Five is about Anna’s strategies about her life predicaments. She goes to see the psychiatrist Mrs. Marks. The psychotherapy does alleviate her mental anguish, but it cannot solve her mental illness. It is Saul Green who helps Anna find her life value. Chapter Six is the conclusion. This part mainly summarizes the above analysis and then gets the conclusion:The Golden Notebook can be looked upon as a literature work which reflects Sartrean existentialism to some extent. Lessing can also be regarded as an existentialism-oriented writer.