The Study Of The Grass Is Singing-from The Perspective Of Schema Theory

As one of the most important writers in contemporary Great Britain,Doris Lessing examines a divided civilization with passion and imagination,becoming one of the greatest woman writers after Virginia Woolf.Lessing's first novel,The Grass is Singing,is a novel about Africa,which has received great attention since its publication in 1950.This novel established the position of Lessing in western literature,for which Doris Lessing became famous and began to appear in world literature.Lessing's works with diverse themes and unique sensitivity come from her own personal experience and subjective consciousness,which gives her a wide international reputation.The Grass Is Singing explores various relationships in South Africa and different aspects of human life,which includes the relationship between the white and the black,individual and collective,men and women and so on.Critics and scholars both at home and abroad have interpreted this great work from different perspectives,including colonialism,post-colonialism,feminism,psychology,writing styles,the image of Mary Turner and so forth.Very few scholars,if any,have interpreted The Grass Is Singing from the perspective of schema theory.Schema means the sum of knowledge and experience which is stored in the human mind,providing a corresponding reference for people to know new things.The literary schema refers to the image formed in people's brain,which is the direct source of the image formation in literary works.This thesis uses the schema theory to analyze the schema characteristics of The Grass Is Singing.At the same time,operation patterns of schema reinforcement and adjustment will be used to analyze this novel to interpret the meaning of the main characters in The Grass Is Singing.Besides the introduction and the conclusion,this thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One introduces the schema theory briefly,including the origin of schema theory,the concept,and relevant scholars.And then the connection between schema theory and novel comprehension is introduced.Chapter Two analyzes the schema characteristics of the novel,which is mainly analyzed from two aspects: formal schema and content schema.Chapter Three analyzes schema reinforcement in the novel and Chapter Four explores the adjustment of schema.It is a new attempt toapply the schema theory to the research of novels,which provides new ideas and new methods for the accurate grasping of the theme and thought of the novel.