Perceiving The Plights And Struggles Of Women In The Golden Notebook From The Perspective Of Foucault's Discourse Of The Body

The Golden Notebook,a masterpiece of Doris Lessing,reveals various social problems in the middle of the twentieth century and leaves great influence on the modern society.Many critics have noticed the feminist color of the novel,but it is relatively limited to use only feminist criticism to illustrate these female issues in the novel.Foucault's discourse of the body and feminist criticism both concern the body.From the perspective of Foucault's discourse of the body,this thesis uncovers the predicaments of female body and shows the humanistic concern of Doris Lessing with female issues by investigating the female body in society,the female body around family,and the resistance of female body.Combining Foucault's discourse of the body with female issues,this thesis investigates The Golden Notebook in a more detailed and insightful way.The combination of the two is challenging and innovative in the studies of The Golden Notebook.This thesis consists of three chapters.The first part,introduction,introduces Lessing,The Golden Notebook and Foucault's discourse of the body,and provides the literature review of this novel.The main part is divided into three chapters.Chapter One reveals the predicaments of the female characters in the patriarchal society.Under the oppression of male power,female bodies turn into subjugated bodies and lose their subjectivity.Chapter Two mainly illustrates the predicaments of female characters in relations to male characters.They live a prisoner-like life in the male-dominated family.Chapter Three dissects the resistance of females after realizing that they are caged in the prison of male power.In the end,there is a concise conclusion about the thesis,reiterating the female predicaments and indicating the humanistic concern of Lessing with female predicaments.