Narrative Authority and Homeostasis in the Novels of Doris Lessing and Carmen Martín Gaite

First published in 1990, this book assesses a shift in the presentation of self-consciousness in 2 pairs of novels by Doris Lessing and Carmen Martín Gaite: 1) The Summer Before the Dark (1973) and Retahílas (1974) and 2) The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) and The Back Room (1978).

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This study, originally published in 1990, assesses a shift in the presentation of self-consciousness in two pairs of novels by Doris Lessing and Carmen Martín Gaite: 1) Lessing’s The Summer Before the Dark (1973) and Martín Gaite’s Retahílas (1974) and 2) Lessing’s The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) and Martín Gaite’s The Back Room (1978). Three major structural divisions facilitate examining implications of the novels for 1) feminism 2) literary narrative and 3) the lives of people-at-large.