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摘 要

多丽丝·莱辛被誉为弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫后最伟大的英国女作家。《幸存者回忆录》是她的后期代表作，是现实主义的幻想小说。本文意在结合程明道的人性与社会发展理论，对这部小说进行解读，探索多丽丝莱辛《幸存者回忆录》中的人性、社会以及他们的关系。到目前为止，尚无作者从人性与社会的角度研究《幸存者回忆录》，因而本文研究拓展了《幸存者回忆录》这部作品的研究维度。另外，本文给人们深刻的启示，即善良的人性促进社会发展，而邪恶的人性阻碍社会发展，并警示人们：在社会快速发展的年代，要对自己的品性进行深入的思考。

关键词：《幸存者回忆录》；多丽丝·莱辛；人性；社会

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Doris Lessing and Her Works 1

1.2 Cheng Mingdao’s Theory of Human Nature and Social Development 2

2. Literature Review 2

3. Human Nature and Society in The Memoirs of A Survivor 4

3.1 The Exploration of Human Nature: Emily, Hugo and Gerald 4

3.2 The Specific Performance of Social Phenomenon 6

3.3 The Relationships between Human Nature and Society 8

4. Conclusion 9

Works Cited 10

1. Introduction

1.1 Doris Lessing and Her Works

Doris Lessing is known as the most excellent writer after Virginia Woolf. She got the Nobel Prize for literature in 2007 when she was almost ninety years old. She is also considered as an epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny. She spends all her life thinking about social problems such as racial conflicts, the relationship between the sexes, the war, and etc. All these problems are mentioned in her works. She tries to wake up people’s reflections on social, human civilization and human nature.

The Memoirs of A Survivor is one of Doris Lessing’s best novels in 1970s and it’s a fantasy fiction written in a realistic way. It tells a story about a disaster which from all people can not escape. A survived woman “I” witnessed the reactions of all the people after the paralysis of the city system. They migrate, help each other and kill. At the same time, it describes the process of how a girl named Emily who lives with “me” to be survived for light through hardships. In this work，“I” shuttle between the real world and the imagined one behind the wall. By describing the scenes of the two different worlds, The Memoirs of A Survivor showed people what crisis people would be faced with in the future in the way of fantasy and she predicted what the future world would be like.

It is a pessimistic fiction essentially and echoes the fatalism of the writer. If the fiction is a mirror, then all that it reflects are always the writer’s soul. The fable is full of realism, mysticism and simniloquy. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, what Doris Lessing really writes about is herself. This is Doris Lessing’s interview in 1985.

In The Memoirs of A Survivor, what the narrator believes that she is seeing behind the wall, that apparent dream world, actually represents her own life, her own children. In the tangible world, Emily whom she sees growing up represents the image of her adolescence. Thus, reality in a dream, marked off by the wall, complement each other to give an all-encompassing vision to the narrator’s past (Li Ying, 2012: 3).

1.2 Cheng Mingdao’s Theory of Human Nature and Social Development

Cheng Mingdao’s theory of human nature points out that there are no “goodness” or “evil” existing in human nature originally but the “seeds” of them. The “goodness” and “evil” of people’s behaviors are the results of their seeds which grow up in the human environment. The “seeds” mean the source of human nature. Consequently, human environment such as the social mainstream values have very important and even decisive influence on the social development. That means human nature and society influence each other. Social development can change people’s human nature and different human natures will lead different social developments. The paper bases on this theory, trying to search the human nature, society and their relationships in The Memoirs of A Survivor. So far for no one has studied The Memoirs of A Survivor from the human nature and society perspectives, the thesis opens a new world for the research of the novel. In addition, the people can be inspired by the thesis that the goodness of human nature can promote social development and evil human nature will hinder social development.

2. Literature Review

The Memoirs of A Survivor is really thoughtful where Doris Lessing points out a lot of social problems, she uses her keen observation and sharp style of writing, showing her worries about the ecological environment, sexual problems and the revival of human civilization. She tries to make readers to rethink the human development.

The ecological crisis is increasingly serious. People have to rethink about the relationships between nature and themselves. Doris Lessing’s worry of ecological environment is all reflected in her woks. Ecological criticism rises abruptly in 1990s. It combines the literature with ecological problems, searches the relationships between human and nature and shows the criticism. Wang Feifei writes this in her works-- Read The Memoirs of A Survivor from the perspective of ecological criticism.

The novel The Memoirs of A Survivor was paid attention to by Doris Lessing. She described how human waste and destruction the nature many times in the book. The description of the migrant population on the sidewalk runs through the whole novel. The behavior habit of the migrant population is a true portrayal of the one of the people who lived in that time (Wang Feifei, 2012: 38).

In this work, Doris Lessing attacks human’s destructions on the nature. By describing the living environment in the abandoned city, The Memoirs of A Survivor points out a way to escape from the disaster. People are warned to protect the environment and the nature. Only the harmony between human and nature can bring out the result of double win-win.

Doris Lessing always pays close attention to the sexual problems in her works. Of course, The Memoirs of A Survivor is of no exception. Doris Lessing is not a feminist, but she once said that science fictions like The Memoirs of A Survivor provided a multi angle way for readers to understand—liberate the female sex imprisoned in the world of man. In patriarchal culture, women are always in the position of a slave. They always live under the examination and judgment of men. They are defined as “the others” and on the object status. Wang Lijuan pointed out that in The Memoirs of A Survivor, “another reflection of the collapse of western civilization was that human went back to polygamy society” (Wang Lijuan, 2011: 172). This is the feminism that Doris Lessing wanted to show. Zhao Xianfeng says that “if Patriarchal ideology was not abandoned, the equality of men and women can not be realized. Only giving up the doctrine of human centre and Patriarchal ideology can lead to the harmony between man and nature” (Zhao Xianfeng, 2013: 103). In The Memoirs of A Survivor, by describing old woman’ activity and experience in her heart, Doris Lessing tries to find pent-up female self. On the other side, Patriarchal ideology is also a problem. Patriarchal ideology originated from sociology. It means the system of social structure and social practice. It is considered that women are born to be more vulgar than men. They are appendages of men. They can not be treated fairly and do not have equal status. Griselda Pollock says that “Patriarchal ideology is not a static gender-oppression power but a psychology-society relative network” (Pollock, 2000: 10). Zhao Xianfeng points out that “Patriarchal ideology is the reason of the oppression of women. But men also get hurt from it” (Zhao Xianfeng, 2014: 69). Gerald’s experience shows the readers what disaster Patriarchal ideology has brought. Sun Fangli reads The Memoirs of A Survivor in Lacan’s way.

In the novel, Emily’s growth was along with the male gaze. But when her female self woke up, she was able to walk out from the image of “the other” and finish the construction of self identity (Sun Fangli, 2010: 367).

The sexual problems in the book can also lead us a deep thinking.

The revival of human civilization is always a problem about which many people worry. In fact, Doris Lessing’s The Memoirs of A Survivor shows her concerns on it. Ma Cailin once said that “the social crisis, spiritual crisis and ethics crisis that appeared at the time when the human civilization went end were treated as starting point by Doris Lessing. She used inspired thinking to search the revival of social responsibility, humanistic care and positive human nature” (Ma Cailin, 2014: 152).

So far no one has studied The Memoirs of A Survivor from the human nature and society perspective. The thesis based on Cheng Mingdao’s theory of human nature and social development opens a new world for the research of the novel.

3. Human Nature and Society in The Memoirs of A Survivor

3.1 The Exploration of Human Nature: Emily, Hugo and Gerald

What is human nature?

For thousands of years, philosophers have discussed and debated that question. Underlying almost all those debates, however, has been a key shared assumption: that human nature is a unitary unchanging thing. This is the “nature” that, along with nurture, is thought to make us who we are (Ehrlich, 2000: 1).

It is connatural and eternal and it is also a common property that men are born with. Human nature can not exist independently, so it exists and performs along with the changeable and special properties: the former is the ‘body’ of human nature which is the content while the latter is the ‘usage’ of human nature which means the form. Cheng Mingdao thinks that the “human nature” of social people such as emotions, reasons, altruism, self-interest, goodness and evil do not only depend on the seeds but the human environment and postnatal education. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, by describing the way of life of different people in the disaster, Doris Lessing shows the readers different human natures. To put it simply, it means using ‘usage’ to express ‘body’. Chen Hongwei once considered The Memoirs of A Survivor a text which narrated a human nature disaster. “It is a disaster where the primitive humanity and the nature of the self were killed by social indifference” (Chen Hongwei, 2002: 91). Human nature is divided into two sides of good and bad. Obviously, the human nature disaster is caused by the evil one. In the work, Doris Lessing describes the disaster vividly. Emily is the most serious victim in the disaster. Emily’s childhood experience that the old woman sees in the other side of the wall is miserable. Her parents’ indifferences make her childhood like this.

The girl feels at a loss, but her smile makes her mother to pull her over rudely. Her mother says with a loud voice: “why did not you take off your clothes? I have told you to do it!” Then, she starts to grab and push Emily. During the period, the fingers of the adults hurt her. Their movement is quite quick, but they scratch her chin. She says that Emily is an intractable child. Face the censure of her mother, Emily wants to get some comfort from her father instinctively. But her father sometimes sent her away, sometimes sandwich her between the legs and plays a game name “tickle”—a sexual abuse (Lessing, 1974: 48).

Normal parents can not treat their children in this way nowadays. But to Emily, it is only a small part of her life. Her parents show almost no love for her. They treat her impatiently. Emily’s expectation for love is always turned down by her parents. It can be said that Emily was abandoned by her parents already. It is clear that what Doris Lessing writes in the book that in the city with disaster, human nature become much more indifferent. Emily’s parents are not conscientious. They do not do what they should do as parents. Even faced with their child, they are still indifferent. Emily suffers a feeling of suffocation because of her parents’ abandons and refuses. What is killed in the works is the goodness of human nature. Because of her parents’ indifference, Emily becomes untalkative. She is even full of preparedness for others. The unequal treatment she suffers from her parents makes her do everything carefully when she meets the old woman ‘I’. This is the disaster that indifference of human nature brings to Emily. The lack of material and the disaster of the city make human nature indifference more terrible. Of course, the disaster of human nature does not only happen to Emily. In the wasted city, in order to live on, people kill each other and are forced to leave their hometown. What impressed most is that in the scarcity city, the neighbors in the same building want to kill Emily’s pet Hugo and eat it. The people abandon their nature. The evil occupies their nature. To live on, they do everything they can do and regards the consequences. They abandon the goodness of human nature and indulge the evil of themselves. In the end, this brings more terrible damages to the vulnerable city.

However, the disaster of human nature Chen Hongwei points out does not envelope the entire city. Though Emily is treated ruthlessly in her childhood and this distorts her human nature for a long time. In the end, her goodness defeats the evil. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, Emily, the little girl is the most firm one when facing the disaster. She does not escape and she does everything actively. She searches for food, grows vegetables, takes care of her friend and gives sympathy for the weak. She gathers the wandering children and offers them food, residence and daily necessities. She protects them from being bullied. Of course, she makes the wandering children have somebody to rely on in the city which is full of disasters. Human nature contains too many aspects. Emily, a girl Doris Lessing describes has different human natures. When the disaster comes, she is not like the others. Faced with the disaster, Emily becomes strong. She does not escape from the city. Her attitude to life was positive. She and Gerald show their love to the weak. And this is the most basic element of human nature. Faced with the human nature destruction and the slaughter, she does not stop helping others. She brings hopes to the others with her kindness. This is the goodness of human nature of Emily. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, human’s behaviors are not the only way to show human nature. The so-called kind human nature dose not necessarily means being full of love for others. Loyalty and being full of responsibility are also good human natures. Emily’s pet Hugo was personified. In western literature, dogs are considered as human’s loyal friend rather than pets. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, it is clear that Hugo, Emily’s pet can completely reflect the meaning of loyalty. It is a microcosm of a kind-hearted person. What he represents is a kind of people who are loyal. It is not just a dog, but the symbol of loyalty. It never leaves Emily no matter how she treats it. When it experiences something bad and terrible, it will guard her with no words. Every time when Emily goes out, it stays at home with her and waits for Emily quietly. It will be sad when Emily is sad. Sometimes, it will stay with Emily for all night without sleep. He protected and guarded Emily. He even did not abandon Emily. This is the loyal, a kind of good human nature which is needed in the city full of disasters. In the relationship between Emily and Hugo, Hugo is always fragile, just like a loyal lover. Of course, Emily also shows her loyalty to her pet. Loyalty is a precious quality which lacks among human beings in the society nowadays. It is also a justice human nature.

Being responsible is also one of the good human nature. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, Doris Lessing describes a world full of responsibilities. In the disaster, the appearance of Emily means a responsibility to the old woman “I”. The old woman has the responsibility to take care of her. To Gerald, the restructured family and the children mean responsibility. He has to provide food and intelligence to where they live. Joan and Hugo are also responsibilities to Emily. When Joan is ill, Emily give her meticulous care and love. All these are the goodness of human natures that Doris Lessing writes in The Memoirs of A Survivor.

Different people have different human natures. When they are in different environments, the human natures they express are not same. In The Memoirs of A Survivor, Doris Lessing depicts various characters with different human natures. All these are representative ones. In addition to human nature, Doris Lessing also writes about social phenomenon.

3.2 The Specific Performance of Social Phenomenon

The modern meaning of society is a union where people gather for the same benefits, values and aims. Society is a collection of people who live together and contact by means of various of social relationships. Among them, the most important social relationships that constitute the society include family relationships, common culture and the traditional customs. On the micro side，the society emphasis on companions and extend to the voluntary union formed for the same benefit. On the macro side, society is a group formed by social members who develop organization relationships and take shape of institution, countries and many other organizational forms. From the general sense, human beings are faced with two problems since they exist. One is the development of object which means economic development. Another is the development of human beings which means social development. In 1845, Marx pointed out that human beings are not inherent abstract. They are the sum total of social relations. So, the development of human can represent the social development. Doris Lessing does not describe how society develops directly but how people’s lives change. The society Doris Lessing describes is not so good. The disaster of the city is the result of terrible social development. Otherwise, how can a social system breakdown so easily only because of a disaster. It is a catastrophe comes to the people. The life in city is terrible. Traffic paralysis is serious. The shortage of food supply grows day by day. This picture is not only the description of the world in The Memoirs of A Survivor but also a prophecy of the true world. This is not alarmist but true. The building the old woman lives changes like this: these buildings were not built in the poor area but were built by private investment on the expensive land—which was expensive before. At that time, many people left the city, so the families lived here were not the original ones. The bustling city lose its original appearance. It can be seen clearly that people here lived hard lives. The social development presents the downhill trend. Wang Feifei once said that in The Memoirs of A Survivor, the real world is anarchy. The resources exhausted and the crises exist everywhere. The society is full of turbulence. This is the result of social developments. It can fully illustrate the failure of social development.

As a matter of fact, social development is the evolution of society. The society in The Memoirs of A Survivor takes a turn for the better at last. In the work, Emily and Hugo become survivors after the disaster. They go towards the door of the new world. This new world is the consequence of the better developed society. Doris Lessing dose not have specific descriptions of this new world, but it is easy to imagine the differences between the new world and the one full of disasters. In the book, Doris Lessing presents a turbulent society to the readers. Under the background of this society, people kill each other. They escape in order to survive. But in the new world, people may have easy life. They can go out for a work to get what they need in their lives. They do not need to survive by hurting others any more.

What can reflect the downside of the society is not only the condition of people’s lives, but people’s thoughts. The patriarchal ideology of human beings appears along with the development of the society. Doris Lessing dose not emphasize this is a patriarchy society, but she writes what will happen in the Patriarchy society by studying Gerald’s behaviors. No matter he wants to be the ruler of the children or he tries to be brave when he is exhausted, all these prove Gerald’s patriarchy ideology. And this is Doris Lessing’s attack on the patriarchy ideology.

Society is the collection of social phenomenons. What people do are all called social phenomenons. So people’s behaviors represent what the society is like. That is to say, human nature and society have close relationships.

3.3 The relationships between human nature and society

As it is said in the above, human beings are not inherent abstract. They are the sum total of social relations. There is a close relationship between human nature and social development. Cheng Mingdao thinks that there is no goodness or evil in human nature at the beginning. There are some seeds of goodness and evil. The goodness and evil people show out are the results of the growth of the ‘seeds’ in the humanities environment. As a result, the social mainstream value-- humanities environment has the extremely important influence even the decisive influence on the social development. It is obvious how the social develops through how human nature changes. For example, Emily’s parents’ indifference is the indifference of human nature. It twists Emily’s personality and makes her eccentric. If human can not live together in peace and they try to calculate others, their relationship can not develop in a good way. However, what the social development needs is the cooperation between human beings. In the end, the wall which the old woman goes through for many times collapsed. Dazzling light appears, and the light is the door to the new world. Emily and Hugo go to the new world and became the survivor. Also in face of the disaster, other people choose different way to stay alive. They rob, kill, and divide themselves from each other. They ignore the process of how to stay alive. Then what all they did become meaningless because they lose their most important thing—kindness. All people who want to stay alive in this way are unable to escape from the disaster, because the society they built is fragile. Doris Lessing uses this ending to hint that to develop the society constantly, human beings should keep positive human nature.

4. Conclusion

Doris Lessing is a thoughtful writer. She spends all her life thinking about social problems such as racial conflicts, the relationship between the sexes, the war, and etc. In her works, she always shows her worries about the world. The Memoirs of A Survivor is one of them. It tells a story about how a girl survives in the deserted city. The behaviors of the people in the novel determine how the society will develop.

By analyzing the behaviors and the social environment in the novel, the thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part, it talks about the explorstion of human nature. People’s behavior can reflect human natures completely. In the second part, it focuses on the specific performance of social phenomenon. Not only the social environment but also the character’s behaviours can be used to analyze this part. In the third one, it combines the first two parts to explore the relationships between human nature and society.

Based on the analyses above, it is clear to see that Doris Lessing’s The Memoirs of A Survivor shows off the human nature, society and their relationships. People can get warnings from The Memoirs of A Survivor that losing human nature of goodness is terrible. Being kind people or not decide the society can develop continuously or not. The people can be inspired by the thesis that the goodness of human nature can promote social development and evil human nature will hinder social development. People in this era should ponder deeply over their characters more carefully. Just like Emily, everyone should be kind persons. This is why she can be a survivor. Human nature decides social development and social development decides the future of human beings.

Works Cited

[1] Lessing, Doris. The Memoirs of A Survivor. London: Octagon press, 1974.

[2] Ehrlich, Paul R. Human Natures: Genes, Cultures and the Human Prospect. Washington, D.C: Island Press, 2000.

[3] Pollock, Griselda. Image, Sound and Power. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2000.

[4] 陈红薇.《lt;幸存者回忆录gt;一个叙述人性灾难的文本》.北京科技大学学报(社会科学版), 2002(3):91-94.

[5] 马彩玲.《多丽丝·莱辛lt;幸存者回忆录的gt;复兴意识探究》.解放军外国报,2014(2):152-158.

[6] 孙方莉.《训着女性自我意识：lt;幸存者回忆录gt;的拉康式解读》.内蒙古农业大学学报,2010(6):366-367.

[7] 王菲菲.《生态批判视域下的lt;幸存者回忆录gt;》.青年文学家,2012:38.

[8] 王莉娟.《“女性主义”还是“人性主义”——lt;幸存者回忆录gt;主题探析》.文学评析,2011(11): 171-173.

[9] 赵先凤.《二元对立的较量之忆——莱辛lt;心存者回忆录gt;的生态女性主义解读》.教育文化论坛,2013(6):101-103.

[10] 赵先凤.《从父权制思想看来新作品中男性的悲剧命运——以lt;野草在唱歌gt;lt;天黑前的夏天gt;lt;幸存者回忆录gt;为例》.凯里学院学报,2014(1):69-71.

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