the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

proper to our time".
She envisages the emancipated
twentieth - century woman as "a mother economically free, a
world-servant instead of a house-servant; a mother knowing
the world and living in lt" (cited in Sangari 1983 ,131.
Further, she portrays motherhood completely transformed,
drvorced from heterosexuality, the prlvate famlly, and
economic dependency. In thls connection, Susan Gubar polnts
out
all the evlls of the prlvate home -- isolat~on of
women, amateur unhealthy working, the waste of
labor and products, Improper upbringing of
children, lack of ~ndzvldual prlvacy -- are
avoided not by destroying the Idea of home but by
extending rt so the race 1s vlewed as a famlly and
the world as its home (1989 195)
3.8.2. For Kate of The Summer Before the Dark, awareness
dawns when she moves away from the confines of her home and
famlly to 'a room of her own', a shift whlch brlngs about a
change In not only her physlcal but also mental landscape.
Whlle her famlly home is a constant remlnder of her roles as
wife and mother, Kate's room 1s symbolic of her newly -
found Independence and idextlty
As she moves away from her
large famlllal home to her independent room, she moves away
from marital bonds and obligations, dlscardlng the garbs of
wife and mcther she had been wearlng untll now
She moves
away from oblects that remlnd her of her role and her dutles
to a place where she can en]oy peace and solitude Like
many other feminist writers, Lessing emphasizes that 'a room