| This thesis compares Doris Lessing's and her narrator's self-presentations in Volume I of her Autobiography, Under My Skin (1994), and two of her semi-autobiographical novels, The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), and Landlocked (1965). The introduction emphasizes the contractual distinction between autobiography and fiction, even as it foregrounds the strikingly similar content found in both Lessing's autobiographical and fictional works. Chapter One argues that in Under My Skin, Lessing constructs a public, false self (Hostess Personality) to protect her private self (the Observer) which leads to the presentation of a divided self, a division also apparent in Landlocked. Chapter Two considers how Lessing in The Memoirs of a Survivor uses a hybrid form, fictional autobiography, to analyze her "self" fictionally. Chapter Three compares Lessing's autobiographical presentation of her mother with her fictional counterparts, highlighting the mother-daughter conflict and its eventual reconciliation. The conclusion asserts that, first in fiction and then in autobiography, Lessing is able to overcome her divided self by imaginatively dreaming herself whole. |
