The Mystical Experience in Doris Lessing’s Early Fiction

Abstract

In her later career, the British woman writer Doris Lessing (1919-2013) becomes interested in Sufism, which “believes itself to be the substance of that current which can develop man to a higher stage in his evolution”[^1]. This interest in Sufi philosophy provides a template for the protagonists’ reconstructive journey in Doris Lessing’s novels. In fact, the heroines transcend the limits of ego-centeredness and gain the kind of superior knowledge beyond immanence—“the limits of the matter, the body, sensibility, being worldliness.”[^2] This article therefore sheds light on this specific dimension and reveals how Martha Quest, the protagonist of _Children of Violence_, manages to escape her solipsistic world through spiritual assent and best incarnates the concept of awakening central to Sufism. No longer individualistic and self-centered, the heroine of Doris Lessing’s novel stands as a witness of and reflector upon the surrounding selves and their life conflicts.