Doris Lessing's use of spatial perimeters: Friend or foe?

摘要

Doris Lessing's works might best be described as dealing with the struggle to unite the fragmented self into a whole human being. Individual wholeness refers to the protagonists being able to come to terms with, and unite, the various aspects of themselves. With inner development or soul searching as a means toward psychological wholeness, Lessing uses the characters' external environment or space to reflect the protagonists' inner struggle or journey inward toward self and cosmic unification. Outward reality, reflected by space or physical surroundings, mirrors an inner reality in the emotional growth or deterioration of the characters. This thesis addresses that metaphor through the use of the short story, "To Room Nineteen," and three novels, The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and The Four-Gated City.; Lessing's stories exemplify how restricted spatial perimeters can give people the courage and security needed to examine their lives. At the same time these stories show the danger of using restricted space as an escape from living.