Identity in Doris Lessing’s Space Fiction By David Waterman

After having suffered the torture of electroshock therapy and psychotropic drug treatment, Charles, to all appearances, seems “cured,” at least to those who never suspected that his “real” identity might be based on a different standard. The institution of psychiatry, as a tool of the dominant power, has become the filter through which eccentric voices must pass in a society where difference is synonymous with violence. Lessing, as a means of social critique, dislocates the reference points which support the dominant ideology, and in such a destabilized society, the madman becomes the voice of reason within an insane community.

In Memoirs of a Survivor, civilized society has broken down into general anarchy, and with it people’s certitude regarding their place; as a solution, they form themselves into tribes, thus proving that social evolution, though very slow to progress, can be reversed overnight when people feel threatened. The pillars which support “civilized” society, being largely cultural constructions, even outright lies, have revealed their fragility. Those who never believed in “civilization” in the first place, like the Ryan family, are much better equipped to survive in a society which has suddenly lost much of its façade. The genuine solution offered in the novel is to find a space outside the status quo, outside the “common sense” of predatory groups in search of an identity, not at the level of tribes but in a truly universal sense.

In Shikasta, a formerly utopian society has fallen away from its ideal, and has now divided itself into groups based on race, gender, nationality and such, against a backdrop of perpetual violence. As in Briefing, the “Link people” are meant to guide the populations, but their message is not understood by most, hence the status quo is assured by marginalizing any criticism of the way things are, as we have already seen in the case of Charles. Those who resist the dominant ideology on Shikasta are those who seek a state of mind and a way of thinking that go beyond current limits, and especially by refusing to participate in the compe-titive division of society.