A Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of Kate’s Self-discovery Journey In The Summer Before The Dark

Doris Lessing was a prolific and prominent female writer since Virginia Woolfin English literature. She was so productive that her works covered various subjectmatters in different style. Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in2007.Nobel Prize Committee praised her as “that epicist of the female experience, who withskepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny”.From The Grass Is Singing to The Golden Notebook to The Summer before the Dark,Lessing was concerned about woman’s position and situation. Especially, when shewas in middle age, Lessing focused on the living situation and spiritual crisis ofmiddle-aged woman, depicting their inner world and bewilderment of marriage,family, self, age and sex.The Summer before the Dark is a novel of woman’s self-discovery. This thesisemploys psychoanalytic theory, mainly Lacan’s mirror stage and Freud’s dream theoryto interpret Kate’s mirror image, its cause and its destruction, Kate’sself-acknowledgement and self-construction. Moreover, through Kate’s story, Lessingnot only expressed her sympathy for the dilemma of the middle-aged woman, but alsotried her best to search for the solutions. Therefore, in a very real sense, it helpsmiddle-aged woman deal with the relationship with male, with marriage and withfamily properly.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction part ofthe thesis, including Lessing’s background, her main works, psychoanalytic criticism theory and the framework of the thesis. Chapter two will explore Kate’s mirror imageas a faithful wife and a perfect mother and analyze the causes. Chapter three depictsthe whole process of Kate’s discovery in four places. Through the summer journeyand dream journey, Kate was trying to find the reasons of conflicts with family,marriage and children. Eventually Kate destructed her mirror image and redefinedherself. Kate expressed her dissatisfaction to her marriage and her effort toself-salvation respectively by the dancing dream and the seal dream. Chapter fourdiscusses Kate’s self-acknowledgement and self-construction. The last chapter is theconclusion part of the thesis.