| Doris Lessing(1919-2013) is generally regarded as one of the most prolific and prestigious female writers in the world. As the last published work when Lessing was still alive, Alfred and Emily combines her essence of writing. She rewrites lives for her parents with her matured writing techniques and innovative structure. Alfred and Emily is a book about Lessing’s parents. The first half of the book is a novella, in which Lessing imagines what her parents lives would be if the First World War never happened; the second half is a memoir about her childhood with her parents. Regarding the second part as a reference of history, this paper attempts to interpret Alfred and Emily from the perspective of new historicism. Therefore, the recurrent themes in Lessing’s former works like feminism ideology, anti-war ideology and class difference could be further discussed.Based on former researches about Lessing and her works, this paper analyzes Alfred and Emily from the perspective of a new historicist combining the historical background. Lessing records many marginal voices in Alfred and Emily. With her recording of marginal voices and her anti-traditional experiences, this paper interprets Emily’s resistance against mainstream ideology and social authority. The paper also explains what brings Emily and Lessing’s self-restraint based on Greenblatt’s “subversion-containment” theory.This paper is divided into five parts. First comes to the introduction part which includes a brief introduction of Doris Lessing, her works, the motivation and significance. Chapter two mainly focuses on literature review of Doris Lessing and Alfred and Emily. Chapter three mainly introduces the theoretical framework, including the general development of new historicism, marginalized voice and Green Blatt’s theory about “subversion” and “containment” is also presented in this part. Chapter four is the part of analysis, which is divided into three parts.The first part is centered on the “subversion” of women characters, especially Emily in Afred and Emily in different periods of growth.The second part stresses how the strength of “subversion” was contained by the mainstream social ideology. Lessing’s pity for her mother and the root reason why they had a terrible mother-daughter relationship could be revealedThe third part mainly discussed the characters in Alfred and Emily. New historicism advocates the recovery of the history for the marginalized. The first section is about the marginalized voice of women. Women are marginalized and silenced for a long time. New Historicists hold that only through women’s voices can the history for women be found. By reconstructing the history in the work, Lessing exposes women’s history from the shadow of men-dominated history. The second section expounds the marginalized voice of common people, including veteran, retired nurses; they are marginalized in a government-dominant society during war time. By comparing with the characters’ lives with war a life without war, Lessing’s advocacy of anti-war could be further exemplified.Chapter five is the conclusion part which makes a general conclusion of the thesis.Based what have been discussed above, this thesis aims to further elucidate how the main ideology affects the production of Lessing’s work during the battle between subversion and containment. Additionally, the influence made by the shift between subversion and containment on Emily and other characters would be presented. In the mean time, the theme of anti-war spirit could be illuminated by the analysis of the marginalized voice. |
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