Awakening At Dusk: A Feminist Study Of The Summer Before The Dark

Doris Lessing (1919-) is one of the most important writers of our time and is known as the great British writer after Virginia Woolf. Lessing's works have been concerned with women issues, and she has always been interested in the lives of women. Women's identity construction and self-fulfillment are the key theme in Lessing's works. The present thesis aims to study her novel—The Summer before the Dark from the perspective of female Bildungsroman.Kate, the heroine, has kept herself as a beautiful wife and attractive mother. But the beautiful dream is broken when her children are grown up. One day in summer, she is away on holiday and begins her journey of growth and awakening due to the temporary leaving of her husband and children. On the road, Kate realizes her constraints because of her years of being an elegant wife and a qualified mother. So she tries hard to reconstruct a new identity, which is painful and full of confusion. Finally, with the aid from a young girl named Maureen, Kate accepts the reality that she will enter the phase of old age and her life also goes into a new state of life. Kate's travel in reality parallels to her dream of saving a lost and wounded seal. The seal eventually returns from rough dry land to the sea with the help of Kate. The seal's returning to the sea represents the end of Kate's self-rescue and also implies Kate's freedom from being a too-involved wife and mother. Kate begins to wake up from her dream and returns home at one dusk with her new expectations. Kate will grope forward in her remaining years, hoping to explore a new gender relationship and create a new family pattern.