On Kate’s Self-discovery In The Summer Before The Dark From The Perspective Of Space Theory

Doris Lessing(1919-2013), a famous British writer, is regarded as the greatest female writer following Virginia Woolf. Her works cover many different literary fields, such as fiction, drama, poetry and so on. Lessing presents readers a variety of fictional world through her uniquely female perspective. The Summer Before the Dark, published in 1973, tells a story about the heroine Kate and her self-discovery during her summer journey.This novel shows Lessing’s persistent concern for the female. Some topics illuminated in it, for instance, marriage, family and mid-life crisis, have aroused many researchers’ attention. However,it is also worthy of notice that The Summer Before the Dark is Lessing’s only novel in which every chapter has its own title. This novel is divided into five chapters according to the change of locations during Kate’s summer journey, namely, “At Home”, “Global Food”, “The Holiday”, “The Hotel”, “Maureen’s Flat”. Every of these titles suggests a space, physical or abstract. What’s more, every of spatial experiences affects the heroine Kate’s self-knowledge. In this novel, the heroine Kate goes through self-confusion, self-awareness, and finally, obtains her self-realization during the changes of her experiences in different spaces. On the face of it, the spatial experiences play a vital role in the heroine Kate’s selfdiscovery.“Space” is an old concept in fields such as physics, geography and so forth. With the notion of “spatial turn” in the late 20 th century, growing concern is given to spatial questions in humanities and social sciences, and the same with the space in literature works. The Production of Space written by French philosopher Henri Lefebvre published in 1974, becomes the landmark of spatial turn in humanities and social sciences. He emphasizes the social attributes of space and the mutual relationship between the space and the subject who lives in it, and divides social space into three levels, namely, spatial practice, representations of space and representational space. Based on the influence of spatial experiences on the heroine Kate’s self-knowledge, this thesis takes Lefebvre’s social space theory as the theoretical foundation and tries to make an interpretation on the heroine Kate’s self-discovery by illustrating her cognitive process from confusion to awareness, and finally self--realization and the influence of spatial experiences on in different spaces on her self-knowledge.This thesis consists of six parts, namely, introduction, four chapters and conclusion.The Introduction is about the background of this thesis’ writing. It covers Doris Lessing’s life, literary creation and her contributions to the history of modern English novels;The Summer Before the Dark’s story lines, writing characteristics and its previous researches; and the significance of this thesis.Chapter One functions as the theoretical foundation of this thesis, which expounds the notion of “spatial turn” in the late 20 th century and the social space theory of Henri Lefebvre. “Spatial turn” arouses researchers’ attention to“space”in humanities and social sciences, and Henri Lefebvre approves the concept of social space and divides it into three levels meaning, namely, spatial practice, representations of space and representational space. He holds that space is not only the result of social production, but also itself is reproducer which affects subject’s behavior. Such kind of idea offers a new way to illustrate the novel The Summer Before the Dark.Chapter Two analyzes spatial practice and Kate’s self-confusion by illustrating the influence of the spatial change from her own house to the Global Food Building on her self-knowledge. Spatial practice means the physical manifestations of social relationship. At the beginning of this novel, the two physical spaces Kate experiences are her own house and Global Food building. The lonely summer’s coming makes her worry about the role as a wife and mother in her own house while the trivial work arouses her confusion about the role as an office lady in the Global Food Building. The spatial change from her own house to social working place makes Kate confused about what she really is.Chapter Three deals with representations of space and Kate’s self-awareness by analyzing how the notions of “Mother” and “Lady” as social conventions affect Kate’s self-knowledge. Representations of space mean the space which is conceptualized. Both in her own house and her working place, the notions of “Mother” and “Lady” always limit Kate, which makes Kate confuse about what she really is. However, the trip to Spain with her lover Jeffrey, her apolexis resulted from illness and communication with the young girl Maureen make her realize that the self limited in the notions of “Mother” and “Lady” as social conventions is not what she really is.Based on Kate’s self-knowledge in the play A Month in Country written by Turgenev and her seal dream, Chapter Four discusses representational space and Kate’s self-realization. Representational space means the space where imagination works, and literary woks and dreams are its typical representatives. In this novel, both the play A Month in Country written by Turgenev and her seal dream affect Kate’s self-knowledge a lot. She changes her understanding about the heroine Natalia and realizes that she is not a woman like Natalia at all when she watches that play again. Meanwhile, the experiences of helping an injured seal to get back the sea in her seal dream bring her new self-knowledge. Finally, Kate finds what she really is.The last part serves as the conclusion, and it shows that: the close relationship between spatial experiences and the heroine Kate’s self-knowledge in the novel The Summer Before the Dark offers the breakthrough point for this thesis. And Lefebvre’s social space theory brings this thesis the theoretical foundation. Based on these, this thesis analyzes the heroine Kate’s self-discovery from the perspective of space theory through discussing the relationship between the three levels of social space, namely, spatial practice, representations of space and representational space and the three stages of Kate’s self-discovery, namely, self-confusion, self-awareness and self-realization. By this way, this thesis opens up a new way to illustrate the novel The Summer Before the Dark, showing Kate has finished her self-discovery after her summer journey, and shows the mutual relationship between the space and the subject in it, reminding people the importance of space and to deal with the relationship between ourselves and the space where we live consciously.