A STUDY OF MARRIAGE IN DORIS LESSING'S FICTION

Lessing's treatment of marriage in her fiction reflects her most important ideas about the individual and society. Her movement has been through fiction to science fiction with a clear, didactic purpose: to awaken the individual to the threat the unjust society poses to life itself. Therein lies her interest in marriage. In marriage one makes a commitment to love and be responsible for another; from it should come mutual support, nourishment, and a dedication to children, society's hope for the future. Society depends on the individual's being able to thrive within its institutions. My study reveals that Lessing in her fiction sets forth a pattern that will insure mutual benefit to society and the individual who must exist within society's institutions, especially marriage.;Chapter II analyzes "The De Wets Come to Kloof Grange" (1951), "Lucy Grange" (1957), "He" (1957), "To Room Nineteen" (1963), and the Martha Quest series (1952-1969). These works demonstrate that marriage fares poorly when the individual is forced into role-playing for societal approbation. The endings in these works are mostly negative.;Chapter III examines "The Temptation of Jack Orkney" (1972) and The Summer Before the Dark (1973), which show that alternatives exist for those who search for values outside marriage and society's guidelines, and that vision and courage are needed to probe the self and defy society. But ambiguous and provisional endings take the place of any firm conclusions.;Chapter IV analyzes The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five (1980), which represents Lessing's view that male and female must encompass the other's world-view if the individual and society are to prosper, and that marriages of all kinds must lead the way.;Chapter I examines Lessing's first novel, The Grass Is Singing (1950), which reveals that the individual and his or her marriage are destroyed in the unjust society.;The Lessing fiction examined demonstrates that if marriage is in jeopardy then as a result of this life is. To enhance life there must be a compact of reciprocity between male and female and between the individual and society which marriage can enhance.