Abstract:The Summer before the Dark is a masterpiece of Doris Lessing, who is a famous British writer. Through the book, Lessing shows her concern for the female fate and her research about female experience and reveals her brilliant narrative writing skills, too. The paper aims to interpret The Summer before the Dark from the perspective of feminist narratology which is a study of understanding the coalition of gender and narrative form. It would also analyze the book through narrative techniques as narrative voice, narrative perspective and spatial narration in order to provide a new perspective to research the book so that we could better understand Lessing’s works and her unique narrative writing skills.

Key Words: feminist narratology; narrative voice; narrative perspective; spatial narration

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 About Doris Lessing and The Summer before the Dark-1

1.2 Previous studies on The Summer before The Dark-2

1.3 Feminist Narratology-4

2. Feminist Narratology through Narrative Voice-5

2.1 Authorial Voice from the Writer-5

2.2 Personal Voice from Kate-7

2.3 Communal Voice-9

3. Feminist Narratology through Narrative Perspective-11

3.1 Kate’s Perspective-12

3.2 Narrator’s Perspective-13

4. Feminist Narratology through Spatial Narration-14

4.1 The House-14

4.2 The Hotel-15

4.3 Maureen’s Flat-16

5. Conclusion-17

Reference-19