the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

193
on Kate, uslng the omniscient narration to tell things which
Kate is too unimaginative to perceive. he Smer Before
the Dark 1s a surprisingly conventional novel for the
lnnovatlve and experlmental novellst of the narratively
darlng Briefing for a Descent into Hell or the structurally
experimental The Golden Notebook
5.3.6. Drabble's me Millatone is a double-volced
discourse, exemplifying the tenslon experienced by the
herolne struggling to define herself wlthln a patrlarchal
frame of reference The narrative is double-volced also
because she speaks slrnultaneously as a mother and daughter
The flrst person narrators of Drabble's novels are usually
lntelligenz, educated and fluent In the discourses of
literature, psychology and contemporary culture, yet then
explanations of themselves are frapentary and at tlmes
Inadequate, leaving a lot to the reader's conjecture and
speculation Her narratxves lle open to m~ltlple, divergent
and lnconcluslve views. Drabble sees the novel as an open
fcm, not a structure of certainty, a form incapable of
resolution, of inconclusiveness and therefore havlng a
'femlnlne ending'
5.3.7. The story of Beloved, told in complex narrative
loops, 1s fragmentary, unresolvable, chaotlc and arbitrary
Whlle the mother Sethe tells part of the story, the daughter