Anti-Utopian Narrative In The Mid-late Novel Creations Of Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing, a Nobel Prize winner, is a world-famous and productive writer,whose works contain wide range of themes and profound thoughts. Previous researches paid more attention to her early representative works than her fantasy novels in the mid-late period, such as The Memoirs of A Survivor, The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five, The Fifth Child, Mara and Dann: An Adventure,Ben, in the World. Recently, some scholars has focused on the anti-utopian themes of these novels, few pay attention to the anti-utopian narrative of these novels.This thesis takes “narrative” as its cutting point. With the application of narrative theories and the supplement of anti-utopian theories as well as cultural criticism, it tries to explore the critical sense, valuable choices and aesthetic attitudes of Doris Lessing's anti-utopian narrative. The first section concludes previous researches on Doris Lessing and her works in China and abroad and current researches on anti-utopian literature. And it also determines main theories that would be involved in this thesis. The body of this thesis would analyze Lessing' anti-utopian narrative from three demensions:Firstly, it would expound Doris Lessing's vivid description of the anti-utopian world from the story level. Lessing depicted numerous appalling disastrous scenes in her fantasy novels, in which the state utopia, religious utopia and technological utopia collapsed, breaking the traditional utopian conceptions and bearing distinct anti-utopian colors. However, Doris Lessing also presented glimmers of hope when she depicted the destruction of the utopias, reflecting the unique anti-utopian construction mode of a female writer.Secondly, it would analyze Doris Lessing's narrative strategies from the discourse level. Through different kinds of focalizations, Lessing created the narrative situations which were both grievous and hopeful. Through the design of time and space, Lessing highlighted the chaos and cruelties of the disastrous world, but at the meantime she also industriously reconstructed it. Through different types of narrative voices, Lessing bitterly criticized human evils and expressed her redemptive intention.Thirdly, it would inspect the cultural and mental mechanism of Doris Lessing's anti-utopian narrative. After the world war II, the turbulent international situations and the flourishing development of culture provided Lessing with the realistic foundations and source of inspirations to conduct the anti-utopian narrative. In addition, multiple cultural identities of Doris Lessing endowed her special perspectives and mental experience.At last, this thesis summarizes Lessing's anti-utopian narrative. Immersed by specific social-cultural context and restricted by unique cultural identities, Lessing flexibly used various kinds of narrative strategies to picture many horrible scenes.Behind these scenes, there actually implied some vigors, producing particular anti-utopian effects. The unique construction mode of anti-utopia embodies author's deep concern about human's survival state and strong aspiration for the perfect society.