| Doris Lessing was one of the most famous writer in Britain. In 2007, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her long writing career, The Grassing Is Singing was her first novel which was published in 1950. Through this novel, Doris Lessing got her reputation in the field of literature. This novel told the story between black people and white people. The protagonist Mary was the wife of Dick who was a farmer in the South Africa. Both of them were white people and they employed Moses as their houseboy who was a native black man. At the beginning, a piece of shocking news was told that Moses killed Mary and the murder motivation was unclear. Then readers followed the author to find out the reasons in this tragedy case. Many scholars showed their interests on this novel and they analyzed this novel from many aspects. Some critics used the theory of feminism, psychoanalysis approach, colonialism and post-colonialism to analyze this novel. Some scholars focused on the themes of the novel. The novels of Doris Lessing contained rich ethical connotations. Therefore, it was worthwhile to study the ethics of the novel. This paper intended to explain the reasons of Mary's tragedy and revealed the author's ethical appeals by combining the method of narratology and Ethical Literary Criticism.The thesis consists of five parts. In the first chapter, it introduces the author Doris Lessing and her novel The Grass Is Singing in details and makes a conclusion on the study of the novel from the aspect of overseas and domestic. Besides, it explains the significance of the study and how to arrange this thesis.Chapter two intends to find out the ethical line of the story. Before finding the ethical line, it also needs to explain the definition of ethical line, ethical environment and many definitions in Narratology. Then, by adopting these ideas, readers could know the whole story is just like a detective fiction, all of the events happened help readers to clear up the case and readers would know that Mary's miserable childhood, her defective personalities and the alienation relationship between her and her husband are the main reasons of her tragedy.Chapter three explores the ethical confusion of Mary. At first, the conceptions related to narratology and ethical literary criticism need to be drafted. Then by using the conception of focaliztion which was put forward by Genette, the ethical implication, ethical identity and ethical confusion are uncovered. As professor N ie Zhenzhao said, the change of ethical identity may lead to the ethical confusion. Then in this chapter, readers could know clearly that Mary is not loyal to her husband Dick, when her ethical identity changes from a single old woman to the wife, she should submit to her husband. However, she violates this ethical taboo, so her destiny is doomed to be sad. Whatever from herself or from the angle of the white men, Mary is in ethical confusion already.Chapter four focuses on the unreliable narration. In the novel, the voice of black people reduce to minimum. The inner minds of black people are blank to readers. And Mary as a main character in the novel, she has defective personalities. Therefore, what she says is unconvinced. Why does the narrator and the author just tell these limited information? It needs readers to judge the murder case in deep level. As a matter of fact, the novel is around the relationship between black people and white people. The conflict between the two sides are fierce. In this novel, the author wants to expressed her ethical orientation. She calls on all people to treat black people equal to white people. And she wants to praise the revolt spirits of black people.Chapter five summaries the whole thesis. The combination of the narratoloy and the ethical literary criticism plays a n important role in analysis of the novel. It helps reader to comprehensive the novel clearly and interpret Lessing's ethical orientation in the novel. In fact, all people are equal and white people are not superior to black people in nature. |
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