Martha’s Resistance In The Patriarchal Society

Martha Quest, the first book of the five-part Children of Violence Series, is amajor one in the early works of Doris Lessing, the winner of the Nobel Prize inliterature. Set in Africa, this novel depicted the growth of Martha, a girl who lovedfreedom and independence, in the colonial society where the patriarchal ideologyprevailed. This thesis interprets Martha Quest by applying to the theory ofdisciplinary power and its operation through various techniques put forward byMichel Foucault, expounding how the patriarchal mechanism disciplines femalesthrough those subtle techniques, namely partitioning, the organization of geneses,hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment and self-discipline. Meanwhile, thisthesis analyses the heroine Martha’s tough and brave fight for freedom and herblindness, dependence and weakness during the fight, which can give someinspiration to females’self-development in today’s society.