Awakening An essay on A Sunrise on the VeldBy Doris Lessing

Every night a boy tells himself over and over that he will get up at half-past four; and every morning the same boy wakes at exactly that time. The boy is fifteen and believes that he is in control of everything and that the world revolves around him. A Sunrise on the Veld tells the story of the realization of a boy that things happen all the time everywhere that he has no control over.
The very beginning of this story introduces a boy that believes he has total control over every aspect of himself:
Every night that winter he said aloud into the dark of the pillow:
Half-past four! Half-past four! till he felt his brain
had gripped the words and held them fast… …It was half-past four to the minute, every mourning… …he had once stayed awake three nights running, to prove that he could, and then worked all day, refusing even to admit that he was tired; and now sleep seemed to him a servant to be commanded and refused.
(Doris Lessing)

The boy wak...