Abstract: 

Doris Lessing, a famous British writer, is a winner of Nobel Prize in 2007. The Summer Before the Dark is one of the important works of Lessing, which tells the heroine Kate Brown’s unusual experiences of self-discovery in the summer.
    This paper mainly elaborates the inner ideological changing process of the heroine in each period of the tour in that summer, and it briefly analyzes the objective factors, which influenced on Kate. And it also analyzes other women images by contrasting of the heroine. Then, it discusses the meaning of the return of heroine Kate, which encourages her to seek independence. At last, it comes to the conclusion that it takes courage to give up, but it needs more courage to return. Return means that she would accept both the positive side and the negative side of life. Life is not full filled with deception. Aging is also the rule of life. Return reflects the balance of freedom and responsibility.

Key words: The Summer Before the Dark; family; return; self-consciousness

摘要：

英国著名女小说家多丽丝·莱辛是2007年诺贝尔文学奖的获得者。《天黑前的夏天》是她的主要作品之一。小说主要是写女主人公凯特·布朗在一个夏天发现自我的不寻常的经历。
    本文首先阐述了凯特在这次的夏天之旅中各时期的思想变化，接着分析了引起她蜕变的客观因素，并将文中其他女性形象与女主人公进行对比分析。最后讨论凯特的回归的意义，总结出回归给予她寻求独立的勇气。放弃需要勇气，回归更需要勇气。回归意味着要接受生活积极的一面也接受生活消极的那一面。生活不全是欺骗，衰老也是人生规律。回归体现了自由与责任的平衡。

关键词：《天黑前的夏天》；家庭；回归；自我意识

Introduction
    Doris Lessing, a famous British writer, is a winner of Nobel Prize, the Maugham prize for Literature, the British Royal Society of literature Honor Award and dozens of other Literary Awards. She was known as the greatest British female writer followed Virginia Woolf. Doris Lessing was born in Iran in 1919 and moved to south Africa Rhodes Garcia with her parents in1924. She discontinued her studies because of eye disease, and she began to earn his living at the age of 16. In 1949, she went back to her homeland, British. She stepped into the literary world with her maiden work Grass Is Singing. The Summer Before the Dark was published, which focused on middle-aged female spirit crisis with a unique vision. It has been praised as the greatest novel after One Hundred Years of Solitude of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
The Summer Before the Dark is one of the important works of Lessing, which tells the heroine Kate Brown’s unusual experiences of self-discovery in the summer. Kate, over the age of forty, is an understanding wife and loving mother. For more than twenty years, she has worked diligently and conscientiously for the family. In one summer, her husband would go out for working, and her grown-up children all left their home. Kate found that she was not wanted by the family any more. She is very lonely and miserable. Kate was invited to the Global food organization to serve as translator, and then she was invited to organize another important meeting. During that time, she encountered a young man Geoffrey and started a relationship with him and went to Spain together. After the tour of Spain with him, Kate is very disappointed with this young man.