Study Of Doris Lessing's On Cats From The Perspective Of Ethics

Doris Lessing is a British writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. As a prolific writer, she has produced large volumes of works, including novels, dramas, operas, poetry, story collections, non-fiction, autobiography, etc. In 2002, her cat series On Cats was published. Consisting of the celebrated collection of stories, Particularly Cats and Rufus the Survivor, and the memoir, The Old Age of El Magnifico, this book brilliantly evokes the subtleties of feline existence.In recent years, Ethics of care attracts lots of attention. Ethics of care, an important branch of contemporary feminist theory, was originally articulated by Carol Gilligan (1982) and has been elaborated, refined, and applied extensively since it was first formulated in the late 1970s. Josephine Donovan and other theorists applied ethics of care to animal question in reaction against the animal rights/utilitarian theory. In addition, Donovan proposed humans should care for animals by communicating with them. This thesis attempts to interpret On Cats from the perspective of ethics of care in order to dig out Lessing's views on animals, to arouse humans' consciousness of animals' existence, and to deepen and broaden readers' understanding and appreciation of this collection of stories.This thesis contains five parts:the introduction deals with the research background and the theoretical basis. Chapter One investigates non-human animals' subjectivity embedded in their sentience and behaviors, though they have to rely on human beings for a living in human-dominated world. Chapter Two discusses how human beings turn to protecting and caring for non-human animals from killing animals, expressing the author's ideal that living beings can coexist in harmony. Chapter Three analyzes how human beings care for other animals, plants and nature besides caring for their cats. The Conclusion argues that animals in Doris Lessing's On Cats are sentient, and humans and animals can develop close relationship through "communication". If human beings can understand animals and treat them as what animals want to be treated, humans and animals can live with each other in harmony.What's more, humans should learn the languages of animals and take care of animals as one's responsibility.