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  • Essay / "A Sunrise on the Veld" by Lessing: critical analysis

    Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, Doris Lessing has created a fiction deeply imbued with autobiographical touches, particularly from her experiences in Africa. All her works are centered on modern themes such as the clash of cultures, the glaring injustices of racial inequality, the struggle between opposing forces within an individual's personality, and the conflict between individual conscience and the collective good. short story “A Sunrise on the Veldt” documents the protagonist's initiation from youthful arrogance to maturity of experience Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't. be banned” ?Get the original essayThis story is about the transformation of a young boy's belief in his superiority over the world into his understanding of his vulnerability and how vulnerable he is to the other inhabitants of the veldt. The author demonstrates extreme mastery of the craft by projecting his point of view through the character of the boy, that life is unpredictable. Written in a third-person narrative, the plot of Doris's story is complex in nature. Lessing paints the portrait of a boy (who does not have a specific name, making him a symbolic character) who is filled with a sense of conceited pride in his perfect control of his body: "he played with it for the pleasure in knowing that it was a weakness he could overcome effortlessly. His pride is evident in his sense of superiority over the forces of nature, as the boy believed in his adolescent triumph: "Even my brain, even that, I can control every part of myself." Deceived by his euphoria over his belief that he is 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 through will alone. As the boy recounts: “He once stayed up three nights in a row to prove he could, and then he worked all day, refusing even to admit he was tired; and now sleep seemed to him a servant to be commanded and refused. » The boy was completely rooted in a feeling of invincibility and he sought the world with adolescent wonder and excitement. Unable to contribute to the vigorous joy of living, the boy asserted his individuality through his exultant attitude and an ecstatic run across the veldt. Ironically, like any typical young person, the boy believed himself to be a fully mature man with total and complete control over his life. As the boy himself thinks: “I'm 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 wish, I can change everything that will happen. "In order to initiate the process of maturity, Lessing subjects the boy to a test of merit. His state of jubilant, exalted happiness comes to an abrupt halt when the boy notices a contradiction: "in the deep morning silence which contained his future and his passed, there was a sound of pain... a sort of shortened cry. The boy completely loses his animation and becomes alert and focused in order to identify the source of the strange sound. It does not take him long to attribute the origin of the strange sound. strangled cry to a mutilated deer that looked like: "a dream silhouette, a strange beast with horns and drunken legs... it seemed in rags! We will create a personalized essay on "A Sunrise on the Veldt: Analysis". review" by Lessing, written to your specifications. Order a custom essay The boy's maturity is subjected to the pressure of natural forces beyond his control when he is forced to attend..