Anita Brookner s Hotel du Lac and the Question of Female Identity

This paper undertakes to examine Anita Brookner s contribution to the feminist question in her novel, Hotel du Lac. Gravitated toward the feminists’ interest in exposing patriarchal forms of power as the cause of the unequal and subordinate status of women in a post-war British society, Brookner attempted to challenge representations and treatment of women and the social relationship between men and women in this novel. Her characters show women who have internalized enduring limiting aspects of patriarchal ideology. Focusing on the major female character, Edith Hope , and several minor female characters, the novelist recorded their ordinary experiences in a calculated style to portray their spiritual world and inner reality. This paper aims to study the contrasting images of “the angel in the house” and “the ideal woman” in Hotel du Lac and to examine how while some female characters adapt themselves to the authority, Edith undergoes the process of self-recognition instead of resorting to the safe and accepted conventions of a patriarchal society and how she finally succeeds to accept her existential loneliness ,which is the only way towards freedom.