Faculty of Humanities
School of Languages
Department of English
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
This research project proposed that two alternative forms of the “Bildungsroman” featuring young female protagonists and aimed at girls as a readership, developed from circa 1860 to 1960.
To explore this proposition, the project initially focused on three girls’ series to see whether they meet the criteria for classification as a “Bildungsroman”: the well-known Canadian Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery, the South African Soekie series written in Afrikaans by Ela Spence, and the German Pucki series by Magda Trott. In these series girls have to learn through experience as they move toward happiness and maturity.
Secondly, the project explores the presentation of the female quest, as well as some development options “in parallel” in such novels as Louisa May Alcott’s now classic Little women and Good wives.
Findings indicate that some novels for girls move towards an exploration of personal development from childhood to maturity, but that the criteria for the “Bildungsroman” should be adjusted to include forms other than the single novels and novels focused on one protagonist that are more typical of the “male” “Bildungsroman”.
It also suggests that the criteria for maturity, self-actualisation and social integration need qualification in the “female” version of this genre. It would seem that, while there are novels for and about girls that do meet several of the broad criteria for the “Bildungsroman”, very few books meet all the criteria, despite the basic pattern of displaying the growing up of one or more protagonists.
The girl protagonists do indeed have varied experiences, and learn from them; some face crises; they are brought face to face with the expectations of society. The books examined suggest that single books for girls cannot be readily classified as examples of the “Bildungsroman”, unless the novel of parallel experience is admitted into the genre.
This suggests that the possibility of a series is a more plausible form for a “Bildungsroman” on and for girls. An issue which problematises the genre itself is the finding that the key criterion of a protagonist who achieves a clear sense of identity and a self-actualising selfhood is either not fully met in these novels, or that self-actualisation and selfhood must be redefined to some extent for a female protagonist, to include a more socially responsible and connected form of self-actualisation.
It is worth noting that in some of the seminal German examples of the adult “male” “Bildungsroman”, such as Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, such socially responsible self-actualisation is also advocated, but that this aspect gradually decreased in English examples (including the Joyce and Lawrence novels cited above, which were, of course, not written for children).
In the series for girls discussed here, selfhood is indissolubly linked to a woman’s social roles as wife, mother, sister and nurturer. For better or worse, the socialisation of girls in these older books as nurturers tends to take precedence over a quest for independent selfhood.
The interest or “conflict” in these novels lies, to a large extent, in the tensions between an emerging selfhood and the socialisation of these protagonists. The books discussed in this article reflect the existing discourses of their time, but they are also part of a literature that has been and continues to be involved in shaping the girl reader’s self.
Findings further indicate that there is clearly a place for the addition to new children’s literature of “Bildungsromane” (single books or series) reflecting the much wider choices available to girls in socially responsible roles other than only wife and mother (or combining careers with such nurturing roles) and allowing for different kinds of self-actualisation.
When the conflicts faced by the protagonists are as universal, as practical and as easy to identify with as those faced by the protagonists in the books discussed here, these books do not date, despite the apparently “localised” and “period” aspects of these novels.
The values of self-control, good manners, considerateness and social connectedness are worth cultivating at any time and in any place. This suggests that there is room for children’s authors to revisit the genre, and to consider the genre (in individual novels or in series, perhaps in combination with other genres, such as fantasy) as a vehicle for demonstrating the path of a protagonist towards shaping both capable selfhood and a socially responsible persona.
This may be particularly valuable in South African children’s literature, where the continued grappling of a protagonist with his or her circumstances and, even more importantly, with him/herself within a particularly complex world, may act as an inspiration and model for readers’ growth towards responsible selfhood.
Mrs I Noomé
School of Languages
+27 (0) 12 420 2421
idette.noome@up.ac.za
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