Fluctuation of Identity in Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent Into Hell

Abstract

Doris Lessing's novelBriefing for a Descent Into Hellproginates the fluctuational identity of the persons asit narrativizes the protagonist Charles Watkins' identitieson the basis of hisclass, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, colonial and postcolonial, nationality, imperialism and so on. With such diversified sense of the determinants of identity which attempt for the iconic identity; Lessing, in this novel, attempts to disclose the complex present situation where identity is formed in relation to general to specific and specific to general focalizing the shift in identity that harmonizes with thechangableidentity. Furthermore, heterogeneous nomenclature, as the protagonist is named as Jason, Jonah, Odysseus, Crafty, Crystal and so on; focuses on the multiety of identitiesin relation tocomplex identitythat senses for theMultiple identity of the protagonist in this novel.