Themetic Interpretation Of Home In Doris Lesslng’’s African Stories From The Diasporic Perspective

Doris May Lessing(1919-2013) is one of the significant writers in Britain. African Stories is a famous collection of Doris Lessing’s short stories on Africa, which includes 30 stories about the white settlers and the blacks. As a border-crossing writer, Lessing expresses diasporas’ confusion and contemplation of home. The main purpose of this thesis is to interpret the white settlers’ endeavor to reconstruct home and the blacks’ attitude towards the change of their original home. From the diasporic perspective, the writer of the thesis proves that Lessing as a dual-cultural diaspora indicates her thought of heterogeneous culture and her recognition of home in diaspora in her early works African Stories.The thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter One mainly introduces the background information of Doris Lessing and her African Stories and identifies the theme of home in the collection. Chapter Two reviews the relevant academic comments about the author and the collection at home and abroad. Chapter Three is about the introduction of diaspora theory and its relations with homeland. Chapter Four analyzes the white settlers’ home construction in African land and the blacks’ reaction about the lost home. Chapter Five mainly analyzes the necessity and possibility of reconstructing home in diaspora and the author’s exploration of reconstructing home. Chapter Six concludes that home can be reconstructed and homeland culture can develop only with a positive attitude towards heterogeneous culture from the diasporic perspective.