On The Dark Repression And Resistance In Doris Lessing's The Grass Is Singing

The Grass Is Singing published in 1950 is the first novel of Doris Lessing, who is one of the most famous writers in Britain and round the world. The Grass Is Singing tells a tragedy about a white woman who killed by her black servant on a south African farm in 1930s. Although not read or examined as widely as Lessing's most famous one The Golden Notebook, it still attracts sustained attention for its various themes that are recurrent in her later novels and its profound relations with some important concepts of modern time. This thesis aims to discuss"repression"and"resistance"in terms of race, class and psychology in The Grass Is Singing.The thesis consists of Introduction, 3 main Chapters and Conclusion, dealing with the similar topics: dark repression and the inevitable resistance or reemergence of the repressed. They can also be regarded separately as dealing with different issues. Chapter One mainly discusses racial violence in the colony and the subversive potentials of the black. Chapter Two is dedicated to criticize the ruinous effects of white capitalist exploitation upon native laborers and the existed land. It also discusses how the specters of anti-capitalism or communism haunt and disturb the authority of the white. Chapter Three mainly deals with Mary's psychological process,focusing on her sexual repression and the resistance of her unconscious desires. In Conclusion part, author discusses the collapse of the doomed colonialism.Meanwhile, the author points out in the end that Lessing is not only to describe the repression and resistance but to hint the doomed collapse of racialism. Under the fake covers, it comes to the irreconcilable circumstance. Eventually, the darkness will resist to gain back their own rights and national interests. From this point, Doris Lessing has indeed the capability of insight. Just like Mary's tragedy, the collapse of the White riot rules is on the way.