Emotional Violence In Doris Lessing's The Golden Note Book

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Recommended: Females in 20th century literature

bstract Doris Lessing, the Noble Prize winner, is known for having been a beacon of inspiration to a generation of feminists. Her The Golden Note Book hailed as the most important work that has left its mark upon the ideas of a whole generation of women. Her novels, short stories and essays have focused on a wide range of twentieth century issues and concerns, from the politics of race that she confronted in her early novels, to the politics of gender which lead to her adoption by the feminist movement. Lessing’s works are viewed by many as auto-biographical since they are closely related to her own life. Violence on women not only be physical but also emotional. The present article deals with the portrayal or picturisation of emotional violence. Emotional violence is a violence perpetrated by finding with emotions of the individuals. Deeply rooted in the socio-political milieu of her time, Lessing was nevertheless well ahead of her generation in many respects. The Golden Note Book thus contains two strains. Politically …show more content…

Offering self-conscious critical detachment, the novel shows Anna’s ability to create lives within her, independent of any external factors. It serves as a logical outcome of Anna’s quest for wholeness, freedom and identity. As Ruth Whittaker observes: “The Golden Notebook acts as a symbol of Anna’s psychic integration, just as the previous four notebooks symbolized her feelings of disunity”. This realizations of her complete freedom to writing produces Anna’s sense of responsibility to create ‘free Women” in which she can ironically treat her former belief system. Therefore, through her ‘unremitting self consciousness,’ Anna reveals her ‘complete freedom’ and finds the ability to generate writing. Anna Wulf, the main character, is a novelist who experiences alienation and fragmentation of her consciousness in the disintegrated

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