Tapestries of Contradiction: A Poststructural Analysis of Lessing’s Martha Quest
-
Alaa Alghamdi
Abstract
Doris Lessing’s novel Martha Quest, the first in her Children of Violence series, is a bildungsroman chronicling a young girl’s psychological and social development and attempt to gain freedom and social agency. The narrative is characterized by the near-constant presence of contradiction, particularly with regard to Martha’s thoughts, desires and attitudes. The young girl’s psyche seems to be, at times, at war with itself. Applying poststructuralist analysis to the narrative uncovers themes otherwise obscured, suggesting a more stable trajectory of development in the protagonist and calling into question assumptions regarding gender, freedom, belonging and peace.
Works Cited
Ahmed, Mohammad Kaoser. 2013. “Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing: Anatomy of a Female Psyche in the Midst of Gender, Race and Class Barriers”. International Journal of English and Literature 4.1: 11–16. Search in Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1967. “The Death of the Author”. Issued by UbuWeb Papers. <http://www.tbook.constantvzw.org/wp-content/death_authorbarthes.pdf> [accessed 21 May 2015].Search in Google Scholar
Coyote, Ivan and Rae Spoon. 2014. Gender Failure. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press. Search in Google Scholar
Culler, Jonathan. 2004/2008. OnDeconstruction: TheoryandCriticismafterStructuralism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Search in Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. 2003. “Culture”. In: Donald Keesey (ed.). Contexts for Criticism. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. 436–441. Search in Google Scholar
Fae, Jan. 2011. “Why the Australian Passport Category ‘X’ May Not Mark the Spot”. The Guardian September 16. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/16/australian-passport-x-intersex> [accessed 21 May 2016].Search in Google Scholar
Jung, C. G. 1976. Collected Works. Volume 6: Psychological Types. Ed. Gerhard Adler and R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Search in Google Scholar
Lessing, Doris. 1964. Martha Quest. New York: New American Library.Search in Google Scholar
Robinson, Sally. 1981. Engendering the Subject: Gender and Self-Representation in Contemporary Women’s Fiction. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Search in Google Scholar
Rubenstein, Roberta. 1979. The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking the Forms of Consciousness. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Search in Google Scholar
Smith, Dodie. 1949. I Capture the Castle. London: Random House. Search in Google Scholar
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Overcoming Perpetual Estrangement in Persuasion’s Heterotopia
- Louis MacNeices Autumn Journal als Zeitzeugnis des Krisenherbstes 1938
- Tapestries of Contradiction: A Poststructural Analysis of Lessing’s Martha Quest
- ‘Waywardness’: J. M. Coetzee and the Ethos of Authenticity
- Return of the (non-)Native: Coming Home in Louise Erdrich’s The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
- Losing One’s Illusions: Affective Sense-Making in Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton and the Popular Media
- Spying in Gagool’s Cave: James Bond’s Colonial Adventures
- Reviews
- Donka Minkova. A Historical Phonology of English. Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language – Advanced. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, xv + 424 pp., £ 24.99 (pb)/£ 70.00 (hb).
- Maria Sutor. Non-native Speech in English Literature. Sprach- und Literatur-wissenschaften 51. München: Utz, 2015, x + 310 pp., 8 illustr., € 49.00.
- Sara M. Pons-Sanz. The Language of Early English Literature: From Cædmon to Milton. Perspectives on the English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xviii + 278 pp., £ 22.99.
- John D. Niles. The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England 1066–1901: Remembering, Forgetting, Deciphering, and Renewing the Past. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, xvii + 425 pp., 55 figures, £ 60.00/€ 81.00.
- M. J. Toswell. The Anglo-Saxon Psalter. Medieval Church Studies 10. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, xvi + 454 pp., 21 figures, € 100.00.
- Judith Kaup. The Old English Judith: A Study of Poetic Style, Theological Tradition, and Anglo-Saxon Christian Concepts. With a Foreword by Hugh Magennis. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, ON/Lampeter: Mellen, 2013, ix + 412 pp., $ 159.95 (hb)/$ 49.95 (pb).
- David Greer. Manuscript Inscriptions in Early English Printed Music. Music and Material Culture Series. Farnham/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015, xv + 206 pp., 36 figures, 8 tables, 84 music examples, £ 60.00.
- Christiane Maria Binder. From Innocence to Experience: (Re-)Constructions of Childhood in Victorian Women’s Autobiography. Schriftenreihe Literaturwissenschaft 90. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2014, 412 pp., € 45.00.
- Stephan Karschay. Degeneration, Normativity and the Gothic at the Fin de Siècle. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, ix + 295 pp., £ 60.00.
- Stephen Ross and Allana C. Lindgren (eds.). The Modernist World. London: Routledge, 2015, 650 pp., € 125.95.
- J. Hillis Miller. Communities in Fiction. Fordham: Fordham University Press, 2015, xiii + 333 pp., 12 illustr., $ 30.00.
- Jeff Thoss. When Storyworlds Collide: Metalepsis in Popular Fiction, Film and Comics. Studies in Intermediality 7. Leiden: Brill/Rodopi, 2015, ix + 194 pp., 34 figures, € 55.00/$ 71.00.
- Ulf Schulenberg. Romanticism and Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and the Idea of a Poeticized Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vii + 251 pp., € 83.19/$ 95.00.
- Kate Rigby. Dancing with Disaster: Environmental Histories, Narratives, and Ethics for Perilous Times. Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015, x + 225 pp., $ 24.50.
- Christine Marks. “I am because you are”: Relationality in the Works of Siri Hustvedt. American Studies – A Monograph Series 244. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014, 234 pp., € 40.00.
- Books Received
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Overcoming Perpetual Estrangement in Persuasion’s Heterotopia
- Louis MacNeices Autumn Journal als Zeitzeugnis des Krisenherbstes 1938
- Tapestries of Contradiction: A Poststructural Analysis of Lessing’s Martha Quest
- ‘Waywardness’: J. M. Coetzee and the Ethos of Authenticity
- Return of the (non-)Native: Coming Home in Louise Erdrich’s The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
- Losing One’s Illusions: Affective Sense-Making in Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton and the Popular Media
- Spying in Gagool’s Cave: James Bond’s Colonial Adventures
- Reviews
- Donka Minkova. A Historical Phonology of English. Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language – Advanced. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, xv + 424 pp., £ 24.99 (pb)/£ 70.00 (hb).
- Maria Sutor. Non-native Speech in English Literature. Sprach- und Literatur-wissenschaften 51. München: Utz, 2015, x + 310 pp., 8 illustr., € 49.00.
- Sara M. Pons-Sanz. The Language of Early English Literature: From Cædmon to Milton. Perspectives on the English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xviii + 278 pp., £ 22.99.
- John D. Niles. The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England 1066–1901: Remembering, Forgetting, Deciphering, and Renewing the Past. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, xvii + 425 pp., 55 figures, £ 60.00/€ 81.00.
- M. J. Toswell. The Anglo-Saxon Psalter. Medieval Church Studies 10. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, xvi + 454 pp., 21 figures, € 100.00.
- Judith Kaup. The Old English Judith: A Study of Poetic Style, Theological Tradition, and Anglo-Saxon Christian Concepts. With a Foreword by Hugh Magennis. Lewiston, NY/Queenston, ON/Lampeter: Mellen, 2013, ix + 412 pp., $ 159.95 (hb)/$ 49.95 (pb).
- David Greer. Manuscript Inscriptions in Early English Printed Music. Music and Material Culture Series. Farnham/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015, xv + 206 pp., 36 figures, 8 tables, 84 music examples, £ 60.00.
- Christiane Maria Binder. From Innocence to Experience: (Re-)Constructions of Childhood in Victorian Women’s Autobiography. Schriftenreihe Literaturwissenschaft 90. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2014, 412 pp., € 45.00.
- Stephan Karschay. Degeneration, Normativity and the Gothic at the Fin de Siècle. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, ix + 295 pp., £ 60.00.
- Stephen Ross and Allana C. Lindgren (eds.). The Modernist World. London: Routledge, 2015, 650 pp., € 125.95.
- J. Hillis Miller. Communities in Fiction. Fordham: Fordham University Press, 2015, xiii + 333 pp., 12 illustr., $ 30.00.
- Jeff Thoss. When Storyworlds Collide: Metalepsis in Popular Fiction, Film and Comics. Studies in Intermediality 7. Leiden: Brill/Rodopi, 2015, ix + 194 pp., 34 figures, € 55.00/$ 71.00.
- Ulf Schulenberg. Romanticism and Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and the Idea of a Poeticized Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vii + 251 pp., € 83.19/$ 95.00.
- Kate Rigby. Dancing with Disaster: Environmental Histories, Narratives, and Ethics for Perilous Times. Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015, x + 225 pp., $ 24.50.
- Christine Marks. “I am because you are”: Relationality in the Works of Siri Hustvedt. American Studies – A Monograph Series 244. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014, 234 pp., € 40.00.
- Books Received
