The marriage quest in 'Canopus': A study of Doris Lessing's 'The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five'

The focus of this thesis is on the metaphorical model offered by Marriages as central to an understanding of Canopus, and as consistent with the apparent development of Lessing's work to date.;The introduction establishes Marriages as a metaphorical model of Lessing's deconstruction of binary opposition in Canopus, and in her earlier supposedly realistic fiction.;Chapter One considers how Canopus fits into the Lessing canon, recognizing that her writing has always been subversive. The relationship between perception and reality is discussed in regard to theories of quantum mechanics and relativity, and feminist and deconstructive discourse--all of which inform her fiction.;The second chapter examines Marriages in relation to the other Canopus novels: Lessing's marriage of the usually discrete traditions of the romance novel and science fiction.;Chapter Three examines Marriages as a matrix, a model of the dynamics of the subversive subtext of Canopus: it is romantic/antiromantic; utopic/dystopic; science/art, allegory.;The conclusion to the thesis considers Marriages as the conceptual denominator of the literary, philosophic, and scientific theories that inform Lessing's writing: perception creates reality. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...