Critical analysis of "A Sunrise on the Veld" by Doris Lessing Hajra Khalid College

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, Doris Lessing crafted fiction that is deeply infused with autobiographical touches, especially from her experiences in Africa. All of her works center around modern themes such as the clash of cultures, the gross injustices of racial inequality, the struggle among the opposing forces within an individual's own personality, and the conflict between the individual's conscience and the collective good. Her short story "A Sunrise on the Veld" documents the protagonist's initiation from youthful arrogance to the maturity of experience.

This story enfolds in its narrative the transformation of a young boy's belief in his superiority over the world to his understanding of how vulnerable he is and how similar he is to the other inhabitants of the veld. The author shows an extreme mastery of craft in projecting home her viewpoint through the persona on the boy, namely, life is unpredictable. Written in third person narrative, the plot of Doris' narrative is complex in nature. Lessing portrays a boy (who does not have any specific name, making him a symbolic character) who is over filled with vainglorious sense of pride at his complete mastery over his body:

"he played with it for the fun...