A Narratological-stylistic Analysis Of The Summer Before The Dark

Doris Lessing is one of the greatest female writers in English literature.As one of her best-sellers,The Summer Before the Dark is divided into five chapters according to five different spaces where the heroine stays.The heroine's different situation,self-cognition and self-orientation are narrated based on these five spaces.Besides the heroine's searching for self-orientation in reality,her self-discovery also proceeds in her inner world by means of a series of dreams.The integrated study of Narratology and Stylistics brings a new perspective for the interpretation of literary works.The stylist Simpson deems that narratological-stylistic study covers both the language features and the narrative structure in a narrative text.Simpson makes an interpretative analysis of how the character's material and mental experiences in a narrative are narrated with Halliday's transitivity system.Transitivity construes human experiences into a manageable set of process types.Moreover,human experiences are also reflected by actions and events,taking place in certain time and space,which form the narrative structure of the fiction.Following this logic,and taking Simpson's analysis as a model,the present thesis makes a detailed analysis of the heroine's actions and events taking place in the different spaces with transitivity system in Lessing's The Summer Before the Dark.Physical space is mainly concerned with the heroine's living space.In terms of physical space,the heroine's different kinds of living spaces are analyzed by transitivity in order to explore what the heroine longs for in the living space is her independence.Social space is expressed by the character's interpersonal and social relationships,and these relations are revealed by.the character's transformation of different social identities.In terms of social space,the heroine's different social identities are involved in the analysis,which unveils the heroine's interpersonal and social relationship,so that her distinct self-orientation could be found out.Mental space is constructed by dreams.In terms of mental space,the heroine's dreams are analyzed,through which the heroine's inner world and her cognitive changes in unconsciousness are revealed.