On The Writing Of Motherhood In The Fifth Child

The Fifth Child(1989)is the 35th work of English writer Doris Lessing(1919-2013).It attracts much attention from critics and scholars after Lessing returns to depict the theme of the reality.This work tells a story about Harriet,the heroine who builds a family with the hope of living a happy life but to find she is blamed and rejected by her family members when she raises the child.Yet she constructs her subjectivity with the power of motherhood.Studies on this work both in China and the West focus on the characters,narrative and themes of this work from perspectives of postmodernism,feminism and space theory.Studies on its theme of motherhood hold that motherhood is the constraints and shackles to mother Harriet,ignoring the positive role that motherhood plays in the process that Harriet constructs her own subjectivity.As to the nature of motherhood,it is both a biological instinct and a varied social nature generated in different social and cultural systems and historical environments.Kristeva argues that motherhood is abject,and the abject motherhood owns the power to subvert the order of the patriarchy.Based on this opinion,this thesis will analyze the process how Harriet is blinded by the patriarchal illustration of motherhood,wakens and constructs her subjectivity from the perspectives of the biological and social aspects in family relationship.It holds that this work embodies the theme of breaking the fantasy of motherhood constructed by the patriarchy and illustrating the actual experience of being a mother.The body of this thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter one interprets the role of the biological motherhood in the patriarchal society from the biological aspect of family relationship.Through analyzing Harriet's subordinated and solitary role in conjugal and mother-child relations,it infers that by confusing the biological motherhood with the social motherhood and constructing the fantasy of motherhood,the patriarchal system blinds Harriet so as to make her willing to play the role arranged by the patriarchy and serve for the patriarchy.Chapter two examines how Harriet recognizes the motherhood from the perspective of family power.It points out that Harriet has realized she is deprived of family power and ought to own family power as she shoulders the family responsibility,which proves that she recognizes that bearing and rearing the child is not the biological motherhood or mother's innate duties but the social motherhood or the responsibility that ought to be shouldered together with the father.Chapter three discusses the process that Harriet constructs her own subjectivity with the power of motherhood from the aspect of family responsibility.It proposes that Harriet's protection of her son Ben and shouldering responsibility to raise Ben show that she saves herself out of the influence of patriarchal fantasy of motherhood and obtains the power to subvert the patriarchal order and construct her subjectivity.The writing of motherhood in The Fifth Child plays a role to criticize the social phenomenon that the patriarchy oppresses women by the fantasy of motherhood.It shows Lessing's care and ideas about the women's problem on housemothers'loss of subjectivity and how to get rid of the constraints of motherhood to mothers.In addition,Lessing's writing of motherhood awakens women to make use of the power of motherhood to construct their own subjectivity,which expresses Lessing's concern for women in the real society.