The Grass is Singing

课

程

英美女性文学作品赏析

教

师

史丽娜

学

生

肖明乐

学

号

104140535

班

级

001/002/003

2013

年

7

月

1

日< /p>

题

目

Two Perspectives of

The Grass is Singing

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Domestic Studies

III. Western Studies

IV. Comments and Limitations

Works Cited

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Two Perspectives of Domestic Studies

III. Comments and Limitations

Works Cited

I. Introduction

A. Doris Lessing

Doris

May

Lessing

(22

October

1919

–

17

November

2013)

was

a

British

novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. She was a

prolific

writer.

By

the

time

of

her

death,

more

than

50

of

her

novels

had

been

published.

[1]

Her novels include

The Grass is Singing

(1950), the sequence of five

novels collectively called

Children of Violence

(1952

–

69),

The Golden Notebook

(1962),

The

Good

Terrorist

(1985),

and

five

novels

collectively

known

as

Canopus in Argos: Archives

(1979

–

1983).

Lessing

was

awarded

the

2007

Nobel

Prize

in

Literature.

In

awarding

the

prize,

the

Swedish

Academy

described

her

as

epicist

of

the

female

experience,

who

with

scepticism,

fire

and

visionary

power

has

subjected

a

divided

civilisation

to

scrutiny

[1]

Lessing

was

the

eleventh

woman

and

the

oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

[2][3][4]

In

2001,

Lessing

was

awarded

the

David

Cohen

Prize

for

a

lifetime's

achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of

[5]

Doris Lessing was considered as the greatest female writer, who was a writer

known for her strong sense of feminism,

after

Virginia Woolf. As a short

story

writer and novelist, as well as essayist and critic, Lessing was deeply concerned

with

the

cultural

inequities

of

her

native

land.

For

much

of

her

career,

she

has

frustrated

readers'

expectations

and

thwarted

would-be

experts

on

her

work,

penning

everything

from

traditional

narratives

to

postmodern

novels

to

mystic

fables.

Doris Lessing was born in Iran in 1919, and grew up on a small farm. Her

family

experienced

a

tough

and

pale

life

there.

Therefore

Less

ing’s

childhood

was somewhat miserable. Because of eye disease, she dropped out of school at

the

age

of

14.

Then

she

began

to

study

by

herself

through

reading

novels

in

different languages (French, English). In 1938, she started to work as an officer

and began

writing.

Lessing

got

married

at

the

age of

20.

Three

years later, she

joined

the

Communist

Party.

Soon

after

that,

she

left

her

husband

and

two

children. Then she married her fellow Communist Gottfried Lessing, with whom

she had a son. Through her life, Lessing has married twice, both divorced in the

end, having produced a son and two daughters. In 1949, she took her

youngest

son to England, with nothing except the manuscript of The Grass

Is Singing. It

was published in the next year and became popular immediately. In the book, her

unique feminist and postcolonial views are clearly experienced.

B.

A Brief Introduction to

The Grass is Singing

The Grass Is Singing

is the first novel, published in 1950, by British Nobel

Prize-winning

author

Doris

Lessing.

It

takes

place

in

Southern

Rhodesia

(now

Zimbabwe), in southern Africa, during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics

between whites and blacks in that country (which was then a British Colony). The

novel

created

a

sensation

when

it

was

first

published

and

became

an

instant

success in Europe and the United States.

The

novel

describes

the

destructive

exploitation

by

British

settlers,

and

depicts the miserable fate of the Blacks and women under the principle of racial

and gender discrimination together with the law of jungle.

The heroine in the story is called Mary Turner. The novel starts with a factual

news paper

account of

the murder of her by

Moses,

who is

a

black

house- boy.

The

rest

of

the

novel

flashes

back

of

Mary’

s

life,

from

her

young

and

careless

days

in

the

town,

through

her

rash

marriage

to

Dick

Turner,

to

her

ultimately

insanity and death.

C. Intention of the Thesis

This thesis tries to analyze

two literary perspectives of domestic studies on

The Grass is Singing

. These two perspectives are respectively feminism and post

colonialism. Through these literary perspectives, this thesis hopes to find out the

current

situation

of

domestic

studies

on

The

Grass

is

Singing

,

providing

some

useful pieces of information to those who want to further the study of this novel.

II. Two Literary perspectives of Domestic Studies

A. Feminism

Doris Lessing once said in

The New York Times

, in 25 July 1982:

“

What the