The image of woman in Doris Lessing's socio-realistic novels

Abstract

The emancipation of women has brought about a change in the social role of women which was reflected in the images of women portrayed in literature. Women writers felt the need to define the concept woman on a literary basis and in the process deconstruct the mythological images of women prevalent in our society. The inferior position of women in society has been the product of socio-historical factors tha.t stretch back into the past. The need for female self-defiriition made itself felt in the last two centuries when the women of the leisured classes found the time to write novels and put forward a tentative feminine viewpoint. The pioneers in this act of insubordination left an influence on those women who followed in their footsteps which gave rise to a female tradition in literature. Doris Lessing continues to write within the tradition established by her female predecessors when she promotes a female perspective in Children of Violence, a work which gives voice to the problems encountered by women in their search for an identity bereft of any mythological implications. This work delineates the problems women must encounter on an existential level.