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Article: Nuclear Cassandra: prophecy in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook.(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- Papers on Language & Literature
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Southern Illinois University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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If you feel certain that society is heading for nuclear war, as Doris Lessing felt in the 1960s, what are you supposed to do with that knowledge? How do you act ethically and responsibly in the face of such a depressing conviction about the future? Or, more radically: to what action might the depression itself call you? Pursuing the social and discursive implications of foreknowledge leads eventually to the question of prophecy--to the role and responsibility of the prophet. Lessing explores precisely this question in The Golden Notebook (1962), a multi-layered, multi-voiced novel in which the lament for a threatened future weaves its way through character, plot, dialogue, ...