Oppression And Resistance:a Study Of Doris Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing From The Perspective Of Postcolonial Ecocriticism

Doris Lessing is a distinguished novelist,poet and playwright of contemporary Britain,and is renowned as the greatest female writer after Virginia Woolf.Throughout her whole life,Lessing created countless literary works in numerous fields ranging from racial conflicts to futuristic science.She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007,becoming the eleventh woman writer as well as the eldest authoress in history to receive this honor.The Grass Is Singing is Lessing’s maiden work which was published in 1950.At a time when national liberation movements and independent campaigns were proceeding at a furious pace all around the world,the anti-colonialism themed novel drew a lot of attention right after its publication.The novel basically tells a story about Mary’s growth and life changes in South Africa.Via the description of the tragic fate of the protagonist,Lessing uncovered the egoistic relationships between different races and classes as well as exposed the destructive exploitation that the African continent suffered under the British colonial rule.As Lessing’s debut novel,The Grass Is Singing is of great significance in the study on Doris Lessing.Although the novel was put under the spotlight right after its publication,most of the relevant researches were conducted from the perspectives of colonialism and feminism which failed to combine with Lessing’s plentiful description of the environment in South Africa.But as a matter of fact,the ecological issues reflected in The Grass Is Singing have more profound meaning than we thought and postcolonial ecocriticism is exactly the suitable theory to apply to analyze the hidden significance of the novel.Therefore,guided by the studies of the author and her related woks conducted by domestic and foreign experts and scholars,this thesis will take an approach of postcolonial ecocriticism to interpret the unequal relationships in The Grass Is Singing between human and nature and among people,and also try to analyze the indomitable resistance revealed in the book.This thesis consists of three parts.The first part is the introduction which briefly traces the life of Lessing,her literary creation,and the main content of The Grass Is Singing.The focus of this part are the relevant research status at home and abroad,core concepts in postcolonial ecocriticism,as well as the significance of the paper.The second part is the main body of this thesis which is composed of three chapters.From the perspective of environmental criticism,chapter one analyzes the economic and ecological oppression brought by white colonists to South Africa due to their utilitarian idea of development.Western development patterns that merely pursued economic growth broke the local people’s original mode of production and also severely damaged their environment.Based on zoocritical theories in postcolonial ecocriticism,chapter two discusses the unjust human relationships under colonial system.Under the double oppression of racism and speciesism,the natives were turned into the other or even regarded as inferior animals by the white,which reveals the absurdity of white colonialists’ attempt to conquer the so called animal-like aborigines.What’s also worth noting is that such oppression and inequality not only exist between blacks and whites but also can be found within the white community,so other than the maltreatment that white farmers,Mary and the government imposed on natives,the disharmonious relationships in the white world are also discussed in this chapter.Chapter three elaborates on the resistance of the colonized party,namely nature,the native people and the poor whites.In the face of oppression,they chose unyielding defiance over blind compromise which exactly highlights Lessing’s profound reflection of the issues concerning nature,race and class.Resistance signifies hope,and as long as the oppressed side is brave enough to fight against the injustice they suffer,a harmonious society is just around the corner.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis,which summarizes the relevant viewpoints outlined above and reaffirms the economic,social,interpersonal and ecological matters reflected in the novel.The postcolonial ecocritical approach of the study throws light on the novel’s deep concern for a harmonious co-existence between man and man,man and nature,and contributes to broaden the vision of related research.