Open AccessVoice from the ‘Other’: A Feminist Reading of Doris Lessing’s The Summer Before the Dark
Author(s) -
M Murugesan,
Appu Muthusamy
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
smart moves journal ijellh
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2582-4406
pISSN - 2582-3574
DOI - 10.24113/ijellh.v9i4.10992
Subject(s) - ideology , reading (process) , caste , sociology , gender studies , race (biology) , identity (music) , feminism , aesthetics , philosophy , politics , law , political science , linguistics
The concept ‘the Other’is a literary theory, which defines one’s identity among others. It explains the state of a person who is neglected or subordinated and displays how one feels as an alien by gender, caste, religion, culture, appearance, geography, ideology and so on. Doris Lessing’s novels are mostly concerned with human race and criticize the patriarchal society, where female does not get the recognition she is due. Instead of taking care of women, appreciating their talents and providing them freedom of expression and movement, the society makes them feel ‘the Other’. Lessing has crafted the novel, The Summer Before the Dark as to expose the fate of women, who are always submissive and unassertive to their husbands and children, thereby becoming insignificant to the society. This paper examines the status of Kate Brown in her family and in the society, where she is neglected and deprecated by her ungrateful husband and children by the frame of ‘The Other’/ ‘Otherness’.