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

<p>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 <i>The Summer Before the Dark</i> (1973) and Martín Gaite’s <i>Retahílas</i> (1974) and 2) Lessing’s <i>The Memoirs of a Survivor</i> (1974) and Martín Gaite’s <i>The Back Room</i> (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.</p>