The Journey to Dialogic Self in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and The Diary of a Good Neighbour

Abstract

The Golden Notebook (1962) and The Diary of a Good Neighbour (1983) by Doris Lessing are two novels providing insight into the perceptions of their protagonists, Anna and Janna, regarding life and self. When approached from the dialogic standpoint of Russian linguist and literary theorist Mikhail M. Bakhtin, both novels are notable with respect to the conflicts they issue between the self as a monologic outcome of life experiences, and the necessity felt for moving towards a dialogic conceptualization of self, and hence, of life. While addressing the one-sided observation an individual performs in the way she understands her self and surroundings, the novels carry a scrutinizing aspect to the psychological and social impacts of this monologic demeanor. This paper reveals how, in Lessing’s two novels, Bakhtin’s dialogic principle, and based on this, a concept of dialogic self is applicable. Analyzing the protagonists’ relations with their selves, it argues that their monologic interactions with the self and the world evolve into living, dialogic ones fed by their new perceptions.