Women’s Self-Construction

Doris Lessing (1919-), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in2007, is reputed tobe the greatest women writers after Virginia Woolf, some of whose works are familiarto us, such as the The Golden Notes, The Grass is Singing, etc. Her works often focuson the female, with the theme of their life and description of women’s political life orpersonal emotion. The Summer Before the Dark by her was hailed by New YorkTimes as the best novel after Cien anos de soledad by Márquez. It tells the story that a45-year-old middle-class housewife Kate leaves home and returns in1973summer inUK, concertrating on women’s inner world, to explore women’s self-awakening, toconstruct and rebirth, and make readers, especially female readers review self,marriage and family.This paper attempts to begin with Lessing’s unique Feminism, analyzing thefeminist narrative strategies of The Summer Before the Dark and exploringcontemporary women’s self-construction problems. The first chapter starts from theintroduction of Lessing’s feminist thought, generally describe the feminism in Thesummer before the dark. The second chapter using the "functional" character and"psychological characters" theory analysis of the characters in the works of femalegrowth and constructed; The third chapter introduces observation Angle of theory,analysis of female observation Angle; The fourth chapter use the dream narrativetheory to analyse the dreams of the novel, to discuss the female from theunderstanding dilemma to go out seeking to return to construct the way of self, toreveal the inspiration from this book for contemporary female construction...