Kate’s Journey To Individuation

Since her first novel is published in 1950 s, Doris Lessing(1919–2013) has raised foreign academic attention. As the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, Lessing is praised as the greatest British woman writer since Virginia Woolf. Her works range from racial discrimination, female identities, male-female relationships to survival crisis of human beings. No matter in which period she produces, her concerns on the development of human spirits are never ceased in her writing career. She is always consistent in helping people on the achieving of self-perfection, self-realization and the balancing between the inner and the outer world.This thesis selects the novel The Summer before the Dark as the researching text. In this novel, Lessing depicts an extraordinarily spiritual journey happened to a housewife, Kate. She is a miniature of thousands of housewives or even modern people, whose pursuit for spiritual growth resonates with the process of individuation proposed by Carl Gustav Jung(1875-1961). By depicting Kate’s self-quest in reality and dreams, Lessing reveals the truth of protagonist’s incomplete personality and at the same time provides a blueprint for modern people who in search of self-realization. From the perspective of analytical psychology, this thesis by utilizing the individuation theory focuses on the inner world of the protagonist, explores Kate’s process of self-discovery and self-perfection and reveals the essence of her journey as a spiritual return.This thesis falls into five parts. Chapter one is the introduction, which makes an overview on Doris Lessing and the novel The Summer before the Dark, the related research home and abroad, and the feasibility of employing the perspective of analytical psychology in studying this novel. Chapter two discusses the latent spiritual crisis in the protagonist in light of the basic proposition of analytical psychology. Chapter three explores both Kate’s dream series and her experience in reality by using the representation of collective unconscious, archetypes, and reveals the process of Kate’s confrontation with her spiritual crisis. Chapter four analyzes the last procedure of individuation, that is, the integrating of the Self. Chapter five is the conclusion which points out Lessing’s emphasis on the importance of seekingindividual’s self-realization, and the practical significance of providing a solution to modern people in search of self-realization.