Gender politics in the Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing and Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Abstract

By relying on Kate Millett's views and her interpretations of patriarchy from different perspectives in Sexual Politics, this paper analyses the position of women in the novels The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing and Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro. In both novels we come across two generations of women in anglophone culture in the seventh decade of the twentieth century. The older protagonists, Kate, in The Summer Before the Dark and Addie, in Lives of Girls and Women, cannot live in the way they want or be appreciated in the way they deserve, because patriarchal culture has imposed certain patterns of behaviour from their childhood and early youth. However, their life stories have served as a warning to younger generations in the mentioned novels. Therefore, Maureen, in The Summer Before the Dark, as well as Del, in Lives of Girls and Women, refuse to accept the stereotypical gender prejudices and to obey the rules and expectations of patriarchy.