The Cry To Be Noticed: A Critical Analysis of Anita Brookner’s Look at Me (Published)
The aim of this paper is to examine the struggle of the protagonist to achieve the self-realization, as portrayed in the fictional world of Anita Brookner. Novelist and art historian, Dr. Anita Brookner was born in London on 16 July 1928. She studied at King’s College and at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. She became the first woman to be named as Slade Professor of Art at Cambridge University in 1967. Her novel Hotel du Lac(1984) won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1984. A Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, Anita Brookner lives in London. Brookner’s devotion to research is one of the reasons for her remaining unmarried. Despite her successful career, there remains an element of regret in the author’s view of her own life. Brookner refers to herself in the Paris Review interview as having always been unhappy, having always stood outside and as “one of the loneliest women in London” (Wirth 41). Born of Polish-Jewish parents, raised in London, she has felt the pangs of isolation. Like Brookner, most of her heroines undergo frequent spells of isolation and loneliness.
Keywords: Anita Brokner, Look at me, Protagonist