| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國文學所 === 98 === The politics of space in the colonial contexts of The Grass Is Singing (1950) and Martha Quest (1952) has rarely been explored. The Grass Is Singing revolves mainly around the conflicting relationship between the female colonizer and the male colonized in the context of apartheid. Martha Quest chiefly portrays the female protagonist’s awareness of her autonomous individuality and her resistance against collective racial discrimination in her period of adolescence. After examining both The Grass Is Singing and Martha Quest, I discover that Lessing has transformed her portrayal of female protagonists’ attitudes towards non-white groups. As I have observed, Mary is stereotypical, whereas Martha is open-minded as encountering other races in the colonial context in South Africa.
In this thesis, I argue that both female protagonists, Mary Turner and Martha Quest, are positioned at the margin because of their unprivileged gender identities. Instead of being defeated by gender oppression, both female protagonists have taken their marginal positions as strategies of resistance. However, despite the fact that both Mary and Martha are marginal in terms of gender, the ways they treat non-white males differ radically, particularly when they are in the process of negotiation with the non-white. Hence, I speculate that, during the two periods of writing, Lessing has implied an-Other possibility for interracial relationship as we compare The Grass Is Singing with Martha Quest. I aim to delve into both the tension and reflexiveness of racial relationship in light of female as a marginal. In other words, I argue that the white female protagonists’ attitudes towards the non-white vary, even though both of them are marginal in terms of gender in South Africa. Besides, I will draw spatial concepts (of margin as a site of resistance offered by bell hooks; of hybridity and negotiation offered by Homi K. Bhabha; and of Thirdspace offered by Edward W. Soja) into my discussion to substantiate my argument while discussing the politics of space in Doris Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing and Martha Quest.
My purpose is to demonstrate that the visible and physical space is unconsciously controlled by the invisible or imagined space. Therefore, I will apply the three scholars’ views regarding space to each chapter of this thesis respectively. By illustrating the female protagonists’ distinct relations with the colonized and the radically different fates of the two female protagonists, I argue that Lessing has changed her attitudes towards colonial space from the negative and tensional, as I have observed in The Grass Is Singing, to the positive and reflexive, as I have observed in Martha Quest, within two years of her writing career (1950-1952). I contend that Lessing has blurred the borderline between the conventional binary opposition and created another radically open space of gender and racial interaction.
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