Analysis Of Martha Quest By Doris Lessing From The Perspective Of Spatial Criticism

Doris Lessing is considered to be one of the most outstanding writers in British literature and the greatest writer after Virginia Woolf,who was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 88.Martha Quest is the first novel of Doris Lessing's The Children of violence Series,which tells the story of the growth of a girl named Martha living in African colony during the world wars,who seeks her own spiritual world and pursues free and independent life experiences in patriarchal and colonial society.In this novel,Lessing,based on her own life experiences in Africa,objectively and rationally told us the living conditions of the people from different countries in African colonies.She showed her deep concerns to the living space of the white colonizers and other ethnic groups in colony from the aspects of race,nationality,the contradiction between children and parents and the differences between the black and the white.As the appearance of the "spatial turn" in the ideological and cultural fields of the western society,more people pay close attention to the space depiction in the literary texts.The space elements in Lessing's novels provide a different perspective for people to observe the world and understand meaning of life.And the reader could capture the spiritual connotation behind the space elements through the limited narrative text.Based on the "space theory of Henri Lefebvre",this paper intends to interpret the features of the spatial construction in Martha Quest through the analysis of the physical,social and mental space in the novel,which provides a fresh way to approach Martha Quest.And it also provides enlightenment to the understanding of Lessing's works,which is favorable of helping to mature the space theory research in literary criticism in China.The thesis is composed of six parts:The first part is the introduction,first introduces Doris Lessing and her work Martha Quest,and then reviews relevant researches of Doris Lessing and her works at home and abroad,and finally is the literature review.The second part introduces space criticism.Under the spatial theory of Henry Lefebvre,a French Marxist Philosopher,this part aims to interpret the space construction of the novel Martha Quest from physical,social and psychological perspectives,which focuses on the living space of African during British colonial administration,the complex and conflicting social space between different races living in colony and the mental space of the heroine,which is the pursuit of freedom,equality and independence.The third part intends to analyze the physical space in Martha Quest.Physical space is the space where people can sense in real life and it is also the place where the characters are and where their thoughts,words and actions happen.This part analyzes the physical space.which featured colonialism in the novel from the spaces of the veld and the city.The fourth part is the exploration of the social space in the novel.Social space embraces the syn-chronic,compatible and order-disorder relationships between different things in society.This part focuses on the relationships between colonizers and the relationships among different races in the novel.The former refers to the relationship between women colonizers and the patriarchal society and the relationship between children and their parents;the latter refers to the relationship between English colonizers and the natives,the relationship between the English and the Afrikaans and the relationship between the English and the Jews in colony.Through the analysis of the social space between colonizers and between the people from different races,this part reveals the contradictory living space under social background of colonialism.The fifth part is the analysis of the mental space in the novel.The research object of mental space is the spiritual world of fictional characters.It exists in the form of ideas,and is expressed by language.It is the result of human spiritual activity.Martha was the protagonist of the novel and her inner world became the focus in the study of the mental space.The sixth part is the conclusion.Through the analysis of Martha Quest from the perspective of space criticism,this paper gives a further exploration of the tough lives of different ethnic and racial groups in the colony.The analysis of the conflicts and contradictions among the displaced colonizers,the exploited and oppressed natives and the marginalized Jews reveals the complicated living space in South Africa.In order to achieve the ideal space of freedom,equality and independence which the protagonist Martha pursues,one had to base on the coordination of the mental space,which can improve the physical and social space in colony.