Causes Of Marginal Character Ben’s Tragedy

Doris Lessing is one of the greatest contemporary British female writers as well as a prolific writer with varied writing styles.The award of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature is an affirmation of her literary achievements.There are 12 years between the publication of The Fifth Child and its sequel,Ben,in the World.Although these two works are not Lessing’s most representative works,they are widely concerned by readers because of their delicate psychological description,ingenious story design and the theme of the social reality of the marginal characters’ living conditions.In these two works,Doris Lessing narrates the tragedies of Ben,a marginal character with the throwback,who suffered from various misfortunes in his family and society,and finally ended his life by jumping off a cliff.The uniqueness of these two works is not only the change of narrative perspective from “Ben’s mother” to “Ben”,but also the multiple ethical factors contained in the storyline,for example,the confusing ethical identity,the ethical choices made by various characters,etc.This thesis will combine the theory of ethical literary criticism to explore the causes of Ben’s tragedy,which represents the epitome of the marginalized people,in order to reveal how to avoid more tragedies of the marginalized people.Ethical literary criticism is a theory put forward by Chinese scholars headed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao at the beginning of this century,and is widely used in literary works analysis.It aims to explain different life phenomena and ethical reasons in literary works from the ethical perspective.This thesis puts The Fifth Child and Ben,in the World into the framework of the ethical literary criticism theory,and mainly analyzes the causes of Ben’s tragedy from the perspective of man and self,man and man,and man and society.First of all,from the perspective of man and self this thesis analyzes Ben’s confusing ethical identity and the process of seeking ethical identity and concludes that the failure to clearly understand himself is the internal cause of the tragedy.Secondly,from the perspective of man and man this thesis analyzes the ethical predicaments and ethical choices of his family members and concludes that the loss of family ethical responsibility is an external cause of the tragedy.Thirdly,from the perspective of man and society this thesis analyzes the behaviors of individuals and organizations in society and concludes that the loss of social ethics is another external cause of the tragedy.Doris Lessing expresses her worries about the living situation of the marginalized people in these two works.We can get ethical enlightenment by analyzing the causes of the tragedy.Only when individuals constantly improve and understand themselves and the family andsociety assume their ethical responsibilities,can marginalized people get more sense of belonging and identity and to avoid more tragedies.