关键词: 多丽丝·莱辛; 《幸存者回忆录》; 异质空间; 苏菲主义; 空间叙事

Abstract:

Under the influence of spatial turn in western academic world in the late 20th century, Doris Lessing’s fantasy novels after The Four-gated City (1969) show obvious spatial tendency. She creates various heterotopias, in which she puts her protagonists’ thoughts and various inner activities. The space behind the wall in the living-room in The Memoirs of A Survivor is such a unique heterotopia full of fantasies and reminiscences, providing the heroine with a special place to conduct her pilgrimage beyond reality. From the beginning to the end she passes through the wall several times, stepping into another space and cleaning her soul and spirit there by washing and meditating, and finally she overcomes her spiritual crisis in real life and achieves personal salvation. It is believed in this paper that the existence of such a heterotopia shows the author’s belief in Sufism which she thinks of as a significant philosophy that is able to help her as well as the whole human being to conquer the weakness of human nature. Besides, the space behind the wall is also a place where both the time and the personal consciousness are materialized, which makes it successfully play the role of narrating and push forward the development of whole story through the narrator’s going in and out of it and by connecting what happens in the real world and what the narrator thinks in her inner world.

Keywords: Doris Lessing; The Memoirs of A Survivor; heterotopias; Sufism; spatial narrative