The Discourse Of Dress In Novels Of Doris Lessing

Dress is one of the most significant means through which individuals are made social and identical.Nowadays,it is foregrounded in literary works and gradually becomes a much-debated topic among literary critics.In Doris Lessing's novels,the author deliberately depicts various characters' dress to reflect the social reality,and to express her social worries.With approaches of cultural studies and close reading,this thesis concentrates on the dress of the characters in her novels,to explore the colonial power struggles,the construction of racial identity,as well as the sexual politics in South Africa during the mid 20 th century.The thesis includes three parts.The first part mainly introduces Doris Lessing's life experience,her representative works,some relevant studies about these novels,and theoretical approaches to the discourse of dress,as well as the significance and structure of the thesis.The second part is comprised of three chapters.Chapter One mainly argues how dress represents the colonial power struggles in South Africa over the mid 20 th century.Dress is a practical negotiation between clothing preferences and the rules governing particular social situations.Once power has invested in dressing,there inevitably emerges the responding claims and affirmations,those of the poor against the rich,of the black against the white,and of individual behaviors against the moral norms.In addition,the “transgressive” clothes of poor whites break the traditionally constructed boundaries among race,class,gender and ideology,endeavoring to demonstrate Lessing's humanistic concerns for individual existence.Chapter Two explores the relationship between dress and racial identity depicted in The Grass is Singing,African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe,The Golden Notebook and Martha Quest.Dressing styles and appearances are frequently seen as reliable signs of the individual's identity and social status.In the heterogeneous African state,it is endowed with dressing practices between British and non-British groups,such as the blacks living in racial segregation,the Dutch African whites,andthe Jewish whites.As the lower class in the colonial society,non-British people are not allowed to select their identity.However,their dressing practices open up new possibilities for creating new racial identity,giving one freedom to experiment with appearance in a way that would have been unthinkable in a traditional society.Chapter Three discusses the intrinsic connection in the discourse of dress among people of the binary genders,and people of the LGBT community.In Martha Quest and The Golden Notebook,dress is used to fight for freedom by women and people of the LGBT community who are still under the judgment of male discourse.What's more,clothes of people of the LGBT community produce a new space of possibility structuring gender diversity.Their unique dressing practices attempt to redefine the sexual discourse in a novel way by breaking the traditional gender norms.The final part is a conclusion which recapitulates the questions and summarizes the findings.