On Women’s Plight In Doris Lessing’s Love, Again

Doris Lessing, regarded as the greatest female writer after Woolf, was one of themost brilliant women writers in contemporary British literature. With her consistentwriting passion, unusual creation themes, distinct literary style and creative writingskills, Doris Lessing gained the worldwide fame in literature field. She has alwaysbeen known as “Evergreen Tree of Literary world” and the “Literature grandmother”.1Kirkus Review gives the comment as follows “Lessing is a contemporary George Eliot,an intellectual whose imagination is firmly grounded in the sensual life and the naturalworld.”2The novel Love, again tells us a love story superficially, at a deeper level, itreflects the emotional plight of different women in real life living either in patriarchalsociety or in modern time. This thesis will conduct a tentative analysis of women’splight in Doris Lessing’s love, again based on the theory of Beauvoir’s The SecondSex, which is believed as the Bible of feminism.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part is introduction, which mainlyintroduces Doris Lessing and her literary achievement; a brief introduction to love,again; relevant theory and theorists and literature review.The second part, namely Chapter One, mainly analyzes the ageing womanSarah’s dilemma in modern society: her unfortunate childhood is the result of female’s“the other” position; her aborted love is because of the traditional moral culture whichhas been internalized in her deeply; her rebellion against strong social tradition is thuspowerless.Chapter Two focuses on Julie, another major woman character in the novel. It isabout Julie’s predicament under the patriarchal society: her double identity, theillegitimate daughter and colored woman, leads to her abandoned fate and heralienated life throughout her life, finally, she can only revolt against the unfairpatriarchy society by means of committing suicide. Chapter Three mainly discusses some minor female characters in the novel.Though they live in modern society, they still suffer great pain in real life, especial inthe sense of love and affection. Joyce is a problematic girl, her abnormal behavior iscaused by the lack of love and care from parents. Joyce’s mother, Anne’s subordinatestatus in the family prevents her from giving more concern for her own daughter,meanwhile throws her into a condition of perplexity. And Elizabeth is a lesbian; herhomosexual love is the result of her husband’s betrayal and indifference in affection.The last part is the conclusion which is based on the analysis above. The thesistherefore reaches a conclusion that one is not born but becomes a woman; it is thetraditional moral thoughts that restrict women both in body and soul. Up to now,women especially some minority group women are still suffering the pain fromunequal treatment, which is caused greatly by patriarchy. Hope that people all over theworld will attach more attention and concern to women.