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摘 要

本文从弗洛伊德人格结构理论视角探讨多丽丝•莱辛科幻小说《三四五区间的联姻》中的意识的发展。莱辛以一个广袤无垠 、缥缈奇特的太空领域为写作背景，记录了三、四、五区间从孤立敌视到联姻融合的过程。在这一过程中，人们的意识也在不断地发展、进步。本文旨在从本我、自我、超我三个方面对小说中人物意识的发展变化进行深入研究，指出随着意识不断地发展，人们逐渐超越本我与自我，终于达至超我。由此可见，《三四五区间的联姻》意在阐释小说中人物勇于打破传统束缚，力求认识自我、实现自我、超越自我，力求追求自由、平等与幸福。国内学者对《三四五区间的联姻》的研究多集中在两性和谐和生态女性主义方面，极少有研究者从弗洛伊德人格结构理论视角研究。故此篇论文为《三四五区间的联姻》的研究提供一个新的角度，引导国人深入关注并研究多丽丝•莱辛及其科幻作品。另外，此文还体现了意识的重要性，鼓励人们在生活中发展提升自己的意识，追求自我实现与超越，追求自由幸福的生活。

关键词：多丽丝·莱辛；弗洛伊德人格理论；《三四五区间的联姻》；意识

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Doris Lessing and The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five 1

1.2 Freud’s Personality Structure Theory 2

1.3 Consciousness 3

2. Literature Review 3

3. Analysis of the Personality Structure Theory in the Text 5

3.1 The Id Reflected in the Main Characters 5

3.2 The Ego Reflected in the Main Characters 7

3.3 The Superego Reflected in the Main Characters 9

4. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Doris Lessing is an English writer with a good reputation. She holds a unique position as “an iconoclastic, outspoken critic of society and politics with a sage-like, almost magisterial status” (Rubenstein, 1979:245). In 2007, Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is described by the Swedish Academy as “that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny" (Wastberg, 2007).

1.1 Doris Lessing and The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five

Doris Lessing was born in Persia in 1919. Five years later, Lessing’s father, who had long been yearning for rural life, led the whole family move to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). However, it was difficult to make a living on the farm for her father. The family had a hard life in Africa. Lessing finished her formal education in a boarding school at 14. When she was 16, she set to work such as telephone operator, nurse, stenographer and so on. In 1949, Lessing arrived in London and started her literary creation. In this period, Lessing focused on the growing political awareness among the black people. Her hard life at the early years in Africa was her important property in her writing. In 1950, she published her first novel The Grass is Singing, which achieved great success. Doris Lessing is a productive writer. In her 60 years of writing, she has written nearly 80 short stories, about 30 novels, and several essays, scripts and poetry. From 1979 to 1982, Lessing published her space fiction “Canopus in Argos: Archives”, the most important works in her literary creation. The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five is the second section of the series.

The story is set in the unknown districts of zones, where three zones are separated by difference mainly in the social organization and geography. Each zone is surrounded by dark and strange air and separated from others. Therefore, they can not communicate with the outside word. It begins when the Provider, the unknowable omnipresent ruler of all Zones, commands Al Ith to marry Ben Ata. Al Ith, the gentle queen of the serene Zone Three, takes a dislike to marry Ben Ata, the despotic king of Zone Four. Ben Ata is also averse to accepting a woman interrupting his life. However, the order is irresistible. They battle against each other for a long time. Ben Ata feels ill at Al Ith’s old habit and Ben Ata’s indelicacy disgusts Al Ith. They are more willing to have a partner chosen by themselves. However, as time passes, they get accustomed to each other and know more about the other’s inner world. Al Ith no longer looks down on Ben Ata and accepts life in the Zone Four. Ben Ata identifies with Al Ith’s thoughts about how to govern the state. In an atmosphere of peace and harmony, they bear a son named Arusi. But just when they are getting along well with each other, another command is given: Ben Ata must marry Vahshi, the queen from the uncivilized Zone Five, and Al Ith ought to turn back to her own zones. The news is bad for them and dismays the two. However, they have no choice but obey the order. Both of them feel sad but they all expect the reunion. In the following years, Ben Ata reclaims the “wild” Vahshi and changes himself a lot. Al Ith is living in a “little shed” at the foot the pass. Five years later, the whole family reunites together. Ben Ata and Al Ith talk with each other friendly. However, on a special day, Al Ith climbs the road to Zone Two and never comes back. Nevertheless, the visible changes caused by the marriage can be found everywhere. The closure of frontier means the integration of four zones. People start to visit other zones and communicate with each other. The zones are filled with vigor and vitality later.

1.2 Freud’s personality structure theory

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is the most famous and controversial Austrian neurologist, now known as the father of psychoanalysis. He showed his extraordinary intelligence in the middle school and always got good marks in all subjects. He entered the University of Vienna when he was 17 and achieved doctor of medicine in 1881. His legendary life began from then on.

Freud refined and improved the concepts of the unconscious, of infantile sexuality, and of repression and proposed a “tri-partite account of the mind’s structure” (Zuo, 2005: 97). In his later work, Freud proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: the id, the ego and the super-ego. Freud came out with a new book in 1923, The Ego and the Id, describing a new comprehensive theory of personality organization. In his opinion, all human’s psychology could be analyzed by the structure which determined human’s behavior. Id is composed of the forbidden desires, being sexual and greedy. It always tries to pursue for the desired pleasure regardless of anything else. The ego acts according to the reality principle. In Freud’s theory, the ego compromises among the id, the superego and reality. It tries to find a balance between the primitive drives and reality while to satisfy the id and the superego. The superego can be taken as the conscience. It tries to behave itself in the society, doing what the external world wants it to.

1.3 Consciousness

What is consciousness? Susan Blackmore thinks that consciousness is the most difficult thing to investigate. “We seem either to have to use consciousness to investigate itself, which is slightly weird idea, or to have to extricate ourselves from the very thing we want to study” (Blackmore, 2007:1). This explanation is complicated and confusing. In the LongMan Dictionary of Contemporary English, it gives four explanations for “consciousness”: the condition of being awake and able to understand what is happening around you; your minds and your thoughts; someone’s ideas, feelings, or opinions about politics, life etc; when you know that something exists or is true. The meaning of consciousness in this paper is similar to the second explanation.

“Science fiction” is one of Doris Lessing’s most important works. However, most people have devoted themselves to learning her masterpiece the Golden Book and The Grass is Singing and ignore the study of her science fiction. Domestic scholars have put effort in researching The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five mainly from the perspectives of gender harmony and ecofeminism, but only few of them study the novel from Freud’s personality structure theory. This thesis opens a new world for the research of the novel and leads people to paying more attention to Doris Lessing and her space fiction.

2. Literature Review

In 1950s, Lessing started attracting attention in domestic as her early works are mostly anti-imperialist and anti-colonization. However, it was regretful that few researches were made on her and her works. It was not until 1980s that domestic critics restarted paying attention to her. In this period, her short novels were translated and published dispersed in domestic periodicals and journals. Sun Zongbai, a scholar, published his thesis “Doris Lessing, A Sincere Female Writer” in 1981, which was the special introduction to Lessing for the first time. Since 2000, domestic researches on Lessing heated up and scholars began to attach importance to her. As the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature was announced, domestic researches on Lessing became more popular.

The space fiction series are among important works of Doris Lessing, which are controversial both at home and abroad, but scholars in China have paid a little attention to them. Chinese academic circle came to realize the importance of her space fiction in 2000, and then thus increasing research works on English literature have covered Lessing and her space fictions. From 2008 on, some domestic scholars made account of these novels. Different reactions existed among the domestic critics. Li Fuxiang made a relatively deep research on Lessing’s science fictions. He accepted them as a successful exploration and a meaningful try. Liu Xuelan regarded them as a test to integrate into traditions. However, Zhang Zhongzai viewed Lessing’s space fiction as total failure.

The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five was translated into Chinese and the related research developed gradually. In domestic, scholars paid attention to this novel from different aspects. Zhang Jianchun from Honghe University wrote several articles of this novel. He and Lei Mingzhen analyzed this novel from the perspective of ecofeminism and scapegoat. He also cooperated with Xu Jianxiang to analyze the main characters based on “divinity love” of Sufism. They found that Al Ith realized the process from “natural love” to “spiritual love” and lastly ascended to a higher level love, “namely ‘divinity love’ through Sufistic tough mortifying and deep introspection” (Zhang Jianchun amp; Xu Jianxiang, 2012:60). Jin Shujuan in her master’s thesis also made a general research from the aspect of ecofeminism. Both Wang Huiqiong and Yuan Chun studied this novel from the harmony of the sexes. While they adopted different ways to study the novel, they made a similar conclusion: Lessing advocates the equality of men and women and pursues social harmony. Zhang Qi in “The Diaspora’s Alienation: Al-Ith’s Identification in Doris Lessing’s The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five” pointed that “Al-Ith’s dual alienation was the consequences of her identification dilemma as well as loneliness and anxiety, “which illustrates Lessing’s diaspora experience reflecting diasporas’ state of being in multi-culture in modern global world”(Zhang Qi, 2014:18).Tao Shuqin made a thorough research on Lessing’s space fiction from the perspective of colonialism. With her analysis, The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five described the differences of the zones and civilizations, which represented the progressed cultured colonizer and the poor uncultured colony image. What’s more, the book Women’s Writing and Writing about Women talked about feminism and imaginary utopia (Liu, Ma and Zhang, 2012:113).The metaphor in the novel was mentioned by Huang Yuanyuan and Jayne Glover.

In short, although many studies have been made of the novel, it seems few articles concern about Freud’s personality structure theory. In addition, studies on The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five are numbered. So it is necessary to spend time researching consciousness development based on Freud’s personality structure theory.

3. Analysis of the Personality Structure Theory in the Text

3.1 The id reflected in the main characters

The definition of id is that the oldest part of the mind from which the other structures are derived. According to Freud, the id is composed of unconscious desires, needs and urges. It performs the pleasure principle, which requests immediate contentment of desires. In the novel, Queen Vahshi is the representative of the id. She just pursues the immediate gratification regardless of consequences. For example, when Vahshi is in Ben Ata’s tent, “She sat sprawling, and lounging, raising her arms to yawn and stretch, moving and swinging her legs as if the chair she sat on was a stone on a hillside” (Lessing, 1994: 256). She just wants to comfort herself rather than thinks for others. Though her behavior is impolite, she takes no care about that. Vahshi is a chieftain’s daughter, but she has not inherited her position as the leader of her tribe. She had fought for it. Then she launched a sneak attack on the eastern towns and terrorized them. Vahshi just wants to satisfy the demands of herself, so do the people in Zone Five.

Vshshi’s gold ornaments, for instance, all had been stolen from the workshops of the cities. The grey furs which set off her blond beauty so well were not the workmanship of her people, but from the markets she thieved from. All the women of the tribes now swaggered about in gold and precious stones and even the horses wore gold chains and the dogs gold collars. Every group of tents had store tents heaped with silks and fine cottons and robs that the women wore for feasts, though not in their ordinary tent lives, and there were festivals every time there was a raid. The lives of the tent people were now not hard and meager and self-sufficing, but full of indulgence (Lessing, 1994: 259).

This suggests that the Zone Five people have never thought about good and evil, but only just want to satisfy themselves. As Freud believes, the id is a kind of the center of the primitive instinct, desire and stimulus.

It contains everything that is inherited, that is laid down in the constitution - above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from the somatic organization and which find a first psychical expression here in forms unknown to us(Storr, 2008: 60).

Freud describes the id as a state of chaos, a cauldron full of boiling passions, the dark inaccessible part of one’s personality.

What little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of this is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We all approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations...It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle (Freud, 1971:537).

The id is also represented in Al Ith and Ben Ata. After Al Ith giving birth to Arusi, Ben Ata feels that Al is ugly. He thinks Dabeeb is charming so he wants to possess her. “Besides, he wanted to see Dabeeb. He did not know why this was, nor much care” (Lessing, 1994: 211). Ben Ata can be considered as the incarnation of the id in that time. He seeks pleasure and avoids pain. He typifies the id for what he has done is irrational, illogical, impetuous and immoral. He knows his mind is wrong, but he still insists on chasing pleasure.

The id affects a person by the pleasure principle which means it will take any possible measures to satisfy the desires. Id only takes care of its own pleasure. When Al Ith knows the news of marriage, she is low in spirits and hunts herself in her house. She disagrees with the marriage so she takes all efforts to resist it. However, she forgets her responsibility as a queen. Zone three is filled with tears, accusations, irrational ill-feelings. Freud proposes that “the id is the reservoir of libido, the primary source of all psychic energy” (Wilfred L. et al., 2004:129). This energy is expressed in drives or urges like sex and aggression. Al Ith once has a dream that “[s]he was sexually initiating Arusi…and it was a dream of intense pleasure, and of tightness, since this was the closest intimacy there was or could ever be, being expressed in the most natural way” (Lessing, 1994:214). Her dream is the representation of the id. When facing with the temptation of the outside world, people usually can not refuse it. The id plays a leading role at the moment. On the way to Zone Four, Al Ith eats some fruits of the low brush. She warns Jarnti not to eat them unless he wants to stay awake. But Jarnti can not resist the temptation so his mouth twists up as he tastes the tart crumbly stuff.

Vahshi is the embodiment of the id. She does everything only by following her original desires, and so do people in Zone Five. They ravage and plunder other towns to make them own rich. They enjoy the pleasure of pillage. Al Ith and Ben Ata sometimes also show the id. They are controlled by the id and forget the principles. Human are born as the id, and therefore they always seek pleasure and avoid pain.

3.2 The ego reflected in the main characters

Freud makes a sharp distinction between two varieties of mental functioning which he calls the primary process and secondary process. The id uses the primary process while the ego employs the secondary process: the reason and common sense; the representative of that part of the consciousness and the portion of management and execution in the personality structure. (Storr, 2008: 61). As Freud stresses, the external world influences and revises the id directly and makes that part of id become ego.

The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions ... in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the ego uses borrowed forces (Freud, 1991:363).

Compared to Zone Five, Zone Three and Zone Four are the representatives of the ego. They have their own discipline and people obey it. People in Zone Three are friendly to each other, and people in Zone Four live in order. Although Al Ith is unwilling to marry Ben Ata, she obeys the provider’s order instead of revolting against it. She knows her responsibilities. Modern theorists sometimes refer to the ego as the executive function. The part of the mind/body system that Freud calls the ego is the part that executes plans and coordinates activity. Al Ith executes the provider’s order though she is not willing to do that.

Freud thinks the ego draws power from the id while controls it, resembling a rider on a horse. When Al Ith first went back to her country, “[s]he bathed, arranged her hair something as she had seen Dabeeb do hers-womanly was probably the word for it” (Lessing, 1994: 90). Her ego defeats her id, so the beautiful Al Ith comes back. If the rider is uncoordinated or lack of skill, the horse goes whatever direction it pleases and the rider must hold on for the dear life. A good horse rider is like a person with good ego strength. Having good ego strength means one can remain in control of his impulses. After living in Zone Four for some time, Al Ith accepts the lifestyle in there. She gradually integrates herself in Zone Three and has an effect on Ben Ata. When Ben Ata first sees his son, he feels afraid and sick. However, with Al Ith’s encouragement, his ego defeats the id, “[h]e strode across, and clumsily put his arms around mother and baby. He was beaming” (Lessing, 1994:208). Then he holds the little creature, he feels pride. The ego is weak because its energy is lent from the id. On one side, the ego accepts instinctive demands and strives to satisfy desires of the id; on the other side, the ego restrains and controls unreasonable desires of the id under the impact of outside world.

Che Bowen thinks that the ego is a poor creature which serves the three masters and consequently is menaced by the three dangers: from the external world, from the libido of the id, and from the severity of the superego (Che Bowen, 2010:195). Al Ith, as a queen, has to do something that she does not enjoy. When she on her way to her country, she hears the news that everything is worsening fast everywhere. “She spent only the time she needed to everywhere. She was welcomed with a kindness that had not lessened… and that this new marriage, or mingling, with Zone Four, was to do with this fault or falling-off”(Lessing, 1994:76). She is tormented with guilt when facing the bad news, but she can do nothing for her people. The ego should coordinate the relationship among the id, the ego and the reality. The ego feels anxious when the three make excessive demands. When Al Ith hears the drum again, she can hardly wait to see Ben Ata. However, there are five people waiting for her. In the conversation, she can not concentrate on talking. She is plagued by anxiety and finally, faints clean away.

There is no doubt that Zone Three and Zone Four represent the ego. They obey the rules and have ordered life. They will be punished if they rob others to satisfy themselves. But the ego plays the role of an intermediary. It uses the energy which is provided by the id so it may seek pleasure sometimes. However, rules will bound them so they feel painful in life.

3.3 The superego reflected in the main characters

The superego is the third function that Freud hypothesizes. The superego is like a supervisor of the psyche, monitoring our activity and making value judgments which lead people feel good or bad about their behavior.

It is the representative of all moral restrictions, the advocate of the impulse toward perfection, in short it is as much as we have been able to apprehend psychologically of what people call the “higher” things in human life (Wilfred L. et al., 2004:131).

After Ben Ata and Vahshi get married, they know about each other. Ben Ata points out that the lifestyle of Zone Five is wrong. They should have an orderly life. Vahshi refuses his advice firstly, but she finds there are slackness and loosening among them. She learns to rule her zone in another way. Her consciousness and mind have a great progress.

Superego serves to control and guide the id and acts as a justice system differentiating right from wrong. Al Ith is the representative of self-discipline, elegance and rationality. But the mysterious Zone Two always attracts her, even when she is expelled from her hometown.

She was leaving behind the parts that she knew, and her horse was laboring under her, as he climbed a steep and little used road to a crest that was cut, once, by a pass. By the pass that led, she knew, to the gap in the blue mountains (Lessing, 1994:235-236).

On the effect of Al Ith, Ben Ata and the women in the Zone Three realize their shortage and start to pursue better world. “Zone Four, once returned to peace and plenty, was to be no less policed and orderly, he was determined on that” (Lessing, 1994:263). “He sat with the child on the raised white marble plinth and lifted his face so that he could see the mountains of Al Ith” (Lessing, 1994:267). Ben Ata breaks through the shackles of tradition and his behavior encourages his people. “The women go to visit his wife, in her own country, and they were going to take Arusi” (Lessing, 1994:267). Women’s behavior is a magnificent feat in Zone Four. In Zone Three, they see a peaceful and wealthy country. They are most powerfully and bitterly crushed down. The gap is so big that Zone Four will spend hundreds of years to chase. They realize their lag and long to make a change. Sometimes, the superego is strict to the ego.

The superego is partly unconscious. It contains two important elements: the ego ideal and the conscience. Finally, four zones start to move and communicate with each other.

There was a continuous movement now, from Zone Five to Zone Four. And from Zone Four to Zone Three—and from us, up the pass. There was a lightness, a freshness, and an enquiry and a remaking and an inspiration where there had been only stagnation. And closed frontiers (Lessing, 1994:298-299).

All the people have new pursuits. Zone Five is well-organized and orderly instead of uncivilized and wild; Zone Four looks forward to harmonious Zone Three; the queen of Zone Three bravely explores the mysterious Zone Two. The frontiers are closed as consciousness of all people has progressed. People in all zones start to communicate with each other. Their material and spiritual life have an improvement.

4. Conclusion

As a female writer, Doris Lessing observes the world through her eyes and describes the life from her perspective. The Marriages between Zones of Three, Four and Five is a story about men and women, individual and group, searching and chasing.

The thesis analyses the novel on the basis of Freud’s personality structure from three parts of the id, the ego and the superego. Firstly, it focuses on the id and how it is reflected in the main characters. The id is mainly reflected in Vahshi and people in zone five. They do things just for pleasure. Al Ith and Ben Ata also show the id through their behaviors. Secondly, it analyses the consciousness development of main characters based on the ego. Zone Three and Zone Four represent the ego. They obey the rules and have ordered life. Thirdly, it studies the sublimation of people’s consciousness with the superego. All the people have new pursuits. The frontiers are closed and their material and spiritual life have an improvement.

Based on the analyses above, it can be concluded that the consciousness of the queens and people in three zones has progressed gradually. Since few people have studied The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five from Freud’s personality structure theory perspective, the thesis opens a new world for the study of the novel. In addition, it also shows the importance of consciousness which therefore encourages people to improve and develop their own consciousness, strive for self-fulfillment and self-transcendence and go after liberty and happiness.

Works Cited

[1] Blackmore, Susan. Consciousness, A Very Short Introduction. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2007.

[2] Freud, Sigmund. The Complete Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Trans, James Strachey. London: Alden and Mowbray Ltd, 1971.

[3] Glover, Jayne. “The Metaphor of the Horse in Lessing’s The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five.” Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 2006 (18):119-132.

[4] Lessing, Doris. The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five. Flamingo: An Imprint of Harper Cllins Publishers, 1994.

[5] Rubenstein, Roberta. The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking the Forms of Consciousness. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979.

[6] Storr, Anthony. Freud, A Very Short Introduction. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2008.

[7] Wastberg, Per. The Noble Prize in Literature 2007 Presentation Speech. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laurentes/2007/presentation-speech.html, 2007.

[8] Wilfred L. Guerin et al.. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2004.

[9] Zuo Jinmei, Shen Fuying, Zhang Deyu. Modern Western Literary Theory and Criticism. Qingdao: China Ocean University Press, 2005.

[10] 车博文. 《弗洛伊德主义》. 北京: 首都师范大学出版社, 2010.

[11] 黄媛媛. 《人类命运的折射镜》. 上海理工大学学报(社会科学版), 2013(4):339-342.

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