A Psychological Study Of Mary's Tragedy In The Grass Is Singing

The British writer Doris Lessing is a versatile and world-famous writer of the contemporary literary world. Throughout her life, Lessing published many novels. She expressed her feminist criticism in her works. The Grass Is Singing is Lessing's first novel. Mary Turner is the heroine in the story. Her tragedy aroused the attention of many Chinese and foreign scholars. They analyze her tragedy from many perspectives, and discuss the relationship between Mary's character and her tragic ending. Based on the previous studies, the thesis conducts a psychological study of Mary's tragedy. The study is based on Jung's studies of consciousness and unconsciousness, focusing on Mary's twisted female consciousness as well as her unconsciousness of the patriarchy, and her racial unconsciousness. The study primarily analyzes Mary's psychological conflict and her split self. The body of the thesis is divided into the following chapters:Chapter one focuses on the following aspects: Mary wants to be economically independent; she shows resistance to the patriarchal society, and longs for a free single life; Mary's sexual awareness also shows her women's consciousness.Though Mary is a representative of feminism, she can not overcome her own limitations. Though Mary plays an active role in resisting the patriarchal society, she is also the victim of patriarchy. Thus Chapter two focuses on Mary's subordination of patriarchal society, deficiency of subjective consciousness, deficiency of sexual consciousness, and her racial unconsciousness.Chapter three focuses on Mary's psychological conflict of her consciousness and her unconsciousness. This chapter focuses on: women's consciousness of economical independence vs. Mary's inferiority complex, sexual discrimination vs. Mary's twisted female consciousness for freedom, the white civilization in patriarchy and the doomed fate of the black male servant.After the above discussion, the thesis finally concludes that Mary's psychological split is caused by the conflict between her twisted female consciousness, her individual unconsciousness as well as the collective unconsciousness.