Topic > ""Dawn on the Veld" by Lessing: critical analysis

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, Doris Lessing has created novels deeply imbued with autobiographical touches, especially deriving from her experiences in Africa. All her works are focused on modern themes such as the clash between cultures, the serious injustices of racial inequality, the struggle between opposing forces within an individual's personality and the conflict between individual conscience and the collective good on the Veld" documents the protagonist's initiation from youthful arrogance to the maturity of experience. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay This story packs in its narrative the transformation of a young boy's belief in his superiority over the world into his understanding of how vulnerable he is and how similar he is to other inhabitants of the veld. The author shows extreme mastery in driving home her point of view through the character of the boy, namely that life is unpredictable. Written in the third person, the plot of Doris's narrative is complex in nature. Lessing portrays a boy (who has no specific name, making him a symbolic character) filled with a vainglorious sense of pride in his complete mastery of his body: "he played with it for the fun of knowing that it was a weakness he could overcome effortlessly" His arrogance is evident from his sense of superiority over the forces of nature, as the boy believed in his adolescent triumph: "Even my brain, that too I can control every part of myself." Deluded into euphoria by the belief that he was a usurper of the forces of nature, the boy was proud of the fact that he had proven his merit, that he had defeated the invincible forces of nature by sheer willpower alone. As the boy recalls: "once he had stayed awake three nights in a row, to prove that he could, and then he had worked all day, refusing even to admit that he was tired; and now sleep seemed to him like a servant to command and refuse" The boy was completely rooted in a feeling of invincibility and sought out the world with adolescent wonder and excitement. Unable to help with vigorous zest for life, the boy asserted his individuality with his exultant attitude and ecstatic running across the veld. Ironically, like any typical young man, the boy believed himself to be a fully mature man with absolute and complete control over his life. As the boy himself reflects: "I am fifteen! Fifteen!... There is nothing I cannot become, nothing I cannot do... I contain the world. I can do with it what I want. If I choose, I can change everything what will happen" To start the maturity process Lessing subjects the boy to a test of merit. His jubilant and euphoric state of happiness is suddenly interrupted when the boy notices a contradiction: "in the deep morning silence that contained his future and his past, there was a sound of pain... a kind of abbreviated cry." The boy completely loses his animation and becomes alert and focused on identifying the source of the strange sound. It doesn't take him long to locate the origin of the strangled scream in a mangled deer that looked like: "a dream figure, a strange beast with horns and drunken legs... it seemed to be ragged" Make it original! We'll create an essay custom on Lessing's "A Sunrise on the Veld": Critical Analysis" written to your specifications.Order a custom essayThe boy's maturity is brought under the pressure of natural forces beyond his control when he is forced to witness the gruesome manner of death of the innocent deer...