Throughout her career, the themes of her works are consistently concerned with the existence and the destiny of humanity. Although the focus of a particular novel may appear to be political, social, psychological, feminist or mythic, the common denominator in Lessing’s fictional world is question of finding the right path for moral equilibrium within the inpidual and between the inpidual and society. 文献综述
1.2 Utopia from feminist perspective and the Study Significance
Feminist theory is all about the mankind should realize the equality between men and women is always being. In Britain, the suffragette movement resulted in a significant political change in the late nineteenth century. International Dictionary of English with Chinese Translation defines “feminist” as “the belief that woman should be allowed the same right, power and chances as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state” (Paul, 2001: 770).
When it comes to the utopia, people may think of “a beautiful world” or “unrealistic place” where people can do anything without any laws. Utopia—it was earliest aroused by Thomas Moore, a British politician and novelist. Since Thomas Moore put forward his Utopia, it passes through the process of metonymy, metaphor, metonymy in subsequent long history, far from the meaning and etymology. Utopia also experienced the process of entity, the ontology, ontology and the existing regression. Now, the term is sometimes with the criticism and irony, just a fantasy, as a synonym for unrealistic, so Lessing tries to deconstruct utopia with the aim to fight for female rights.
The Grass is Singing is an experimental fiction with obvious postmodernist features, racial discrimination, colonial, poor white emigration, women’s survival plight and so on. The thesis chooses the angle of the conception of utopia to make an interpretation of the novel from feminist perspective. It is a theoretical innovation that no one has yet written it. In addition, it can teach everyone to live better and be themselves in ordinary life.
2. Literature Review
Doris Lessing is an outstanding female writer and has got contemporary British literary reputation. At the age of 88, she has become one of the longest history Nobel literature prize winners who is known as the “English literature old grandmother.” The famous critic Harold Bloom once commented: “Lessing is a very representative writer of our time. Even if she does not have the style of the times, is also a kind of spirit of the times. ”(Bloom, 1986: 21)来~自^751论+文.网www.751com.cn/
When Lessing’s book The Golden Notebook published, it established her position in the western literary world; it was also regarded as her representative. Studies on her fictions abroad had gone deeply into many aspects, such as modernism, feminist, ecofeminist, race, gender studies, literature ethics, and focus of narration and so on.
In domestic, some scholars have paid attention to her works from the aspects. Modernism is the most distinct feature of her fictions. Yin Ling from Qingdao University wrote a series of articles on the theme of modernism of Lessing’s novels. And in her works, the innovative use of the post modernist technique of expression becomes a typical representative of the realistic and postmodernist form organically. In addition, Zhao Bingbing, a scholar, made some researches on narrative characteristics of modernism. Zhang Xuan quested for Lessing’s inner world through making an analysis of The Golden Notebook, and Sun Jin studied this novel from the analysis of narrative strategy and postmodernism. Yi Lei, the translator of the novel, wrote an essay of it from the angle of unrestricted time and space.
In short, although many studies have been made of her works, there seems to be no article mentioning utopia in women’s eyes. So it is necessary to spend time researching the utopia in this novel from feminist perspective.