Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950) and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902): a study of an “Anxiety of Authorship”

Abstract

This dissertation deals with Doris Lessing‘s The Grass is Singing (1950) and Joseph Conrad‘s Heart of Darkness (1902). The purpose of our study is to shed light on Conrad‘s influence on Doris Lessing, and depict how the latter struggles for self-creativity. To reach this aim, we have applied Sandra M.Gilbert and Susan Gubar feminist theory of ―The Anxiety of Authorship‖ that is developed in their The Mad Woman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth- Century Literary Imagination (1979). It is concerned with the anxiety female writers encounter when they ―attempt the pen‖. This work examines the most articulate characters in both novels: Mary Turner, the leading female role of the Grass is Singing, and the character of Kurtz, who is one of the protagonists in Heart of Darkness. In order to accomplish our analysis, we have taken into consideration the diverse themes that unite the two novels which are, Racism and Madness, then we have dealt with the way both authors treat their female characters or the way they represent them. This dissertation can be used as a tool to help readers get familiar with the way Doris Lessing tries to break with the boundaries that are imposed on women writers through her work, and go beyond the domination of the male predecessors.