Abstract

Doris Lessing is a British author of novels and short stories. Most of her works  focused on the female consciousness. As a representative of the female consciousness, Lessing’s novel The Summer Before the Dark is regarded as a typical masterpiece, which was written in 1970s, showing British women’s life in the 20th century. This novel showed Kate’s confusion about marriage, family and self-value. Through the application of image, Doris Lessing presented the conflict in the heroine’s inner heart directly and also made the readers understand the women’s searching for confidence and identity.
Many scholars have conducted a series of studies about the application of image in literary works. Through their studies, it can be seen that image had been an imporatant role to show the characteristics of the protagonists and the achievement the author wants to reach.
This thesis mainly analyses the application of image in the novel in order to know more about Lessing's writing characteristics and female consciousness. It consists of three parts. The first part is to present a brief introduction of the novel and the author as well as the author’s achievement in literature. Part two deals with the definition, classification and features of literary image. The third part focuses on the application of image in The Summer Before the Dark.  
From the analysis, this thesis aims to let people not only have a deep understanding of the image application in The Summer Before the Dark , but also get to know more about the female consciousness in Doris Lessing’s works.

Key words: image; summer; dark; seal’s dream; animals

摘  要

多丽丝•莱辛是一位英国小说家和短篇小说家。她的大多数作品皆聚焦于女性意识。作为女性意识的最具代表性的作品，多丽丝•莱辛的作品《天黑前的夏天》写于19世纪70年代，被认为是用来展示20世纪英国女性生活的最典型的作品。这部小说展现了凯特对于婚姻，家庭以及个人价值的疑惑。通过意象的运用，多丽丝•莱辛具体地展现了这些疑惑，使读者更好地了解到女性对于自信以及自我价值的追求。
很多学者针对于意象在文学作品中的应用已经进行了很多研究。通过这些研究可以发现，意象在展现人物性格以及作者想要达到的目的方面扮演了重要的角色。
论文主要分析了作品中的意象运用，以便更好的了解莱辛的写作特点以及所体现的女性意识。本文由三部分构成。第一部分简要介绍本书内容，作者作品，以及作者在文学方面所取得的成就；第二部分阐述文学意象的含义、分类及其特点；第三部分着重分析《天黑前的夏天》中的意象运用。
通过分析，本论文旨在使人们不仅对《天黑前的夏天》中的意象运用有一个更深的理解，同时也使人们更多的了解多丽丝•莱辛作品所展现的女性意识。

关键词：意象；夏天；天黑；海豹之梦；动物