“The Other” Among “The Other”

Doris Lessing(1919-2013), British writer born in Iran, growing up in Africa, has written on a wide range of subjects involving female problems, racial problems, family and social problems. Human relationship has always been her focus and the relationship among “the other” interests her intensely, especially the construction of social identity. The Ben novels describe Ben's life experience at home and in the world, a tragedy in the end. Both in the family or in the world of the marginal men, Ben was seen as “the other”. Having been abandoned by his family twice and suffered all kinds of deceits, he died outside at last. The novel showed how Ben and his marginal “friends” lived in the space away from the upper social class, and lived with violence. They had to run away for survival, away from the hometown as well as from the past, so as to avoid despair and humility.Compared with Lessing's other novels, the Ben novels have attracted less attention. The scholars have focused on the family values, female status, narration and the psychological development with such approaches as feminism, structuralism, psychoanalysis and cultural criticism. The academic researches concerning “the other” and identity are not satisfactory in number, and they have ignored the prejudice among the group of “the other”, so this thesis analyzes Ben's identity as “the other” among “the other” on the basis of social identity theory, so as to explore Ben's tragedy caused by socially-constructed identity.Specifically, the social identity theory is used to explain the phenomenon of “the other” of the family and “the other” of the marginal men. The Lovatts are “the other” of their peer group, and the marginal men are seen as “the other” because of their characteristics. According to social identity theory, the lower the social status of a social group is, the looser is the ingroup relationship; as a result, the inequalities and discrimination easily occur within lower status group. Ben falls into the identity crisis of “the other” among “the other”. The thesis also aims at illustrating that the social power works on the social identity via the identity standards. Certainly, social power has exerted great influence on the social identity. Ben tries to establish an ideal social identity through some identity strategies, which include impersonation, and, in Homi K. Bhabha's terms, mimicry and minoritization. The usage of these strategies, to a certain degree, leads to the temporary elevation of Ben's identity, but this attempt finally fails, ending up with his own death.Ben's identity crisis as “the other” among “the other” and his failure in the construction of an ideal social identity indicate that despite Ben's deviations in emotion and intelligence, his tragedy is mainly caused by the social factors. The identity of “the other” among “the other” is the product of social power. The construction of social identity is based on similarities rather than differences, and follows a standard which is the product of power. The tragedy of Ben demonstrates that the social identity is certainly controlled by social power. The tragedy will only be prevented through respect for the difference since the identity standard often overemphasizes similarities and overlooks differences. Since Ben differs greatly from his family members and the marginal men in both intelligence and emotion, the only rational way of treating him, the hope of getting rid of discrimination should take his personality into consideration instead of imposing a uniform standard on him. This would require some new standards. Moreover, the construction of ideal social identity also relies on reform and establishment of the new identity standards. If the groups of “the other” desire to construct any ideal social identity, they would have to need the help of the dominant social group in order to establish the social systems and the social identity standards which acknowledge and respect differences instead of suppressing them.