Reading of Life after Life: A Female Bildungsroman Novel

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Female Bildungsroman

scholarly journals Queering gender in contemporary female Bildung narrative

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Soňa Šnircová
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
British Novel ◽  
Female Bildungsroman ◽  
Female Version

Abstract The paper explores, in the context of feminist discussions about the Bildungsroman, a contemporary British novel that offers shocking images of female coming of age at the turn of the millennium. Queering gender and introducing male elements into the heroine’s process of maturation, the analysed novel appears to raise questions about the continuous relevance of the feminist distinction between male and female version of the genre. The paper however argues that although significantly rewriting both female Bildung and pornographic narratives, Helen Walsh’s Brass can still be read as a variation of the female Bildungsroman and an example of its contemporary developments.

Zinovieva-Annibal, Lydia Dmitrievna (1866–1907)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian James Baer
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Female Bildungsroman ◽  
Literary Salon

A Russian prose writer and dramatist, Zinovieva-Annibal (with her second husband, Viacheslav Ivanov) hosted the influential literary salon known as The Tower. Born in St Petersburg into an aristocratic family, Zinovieva-Annibal was a rebel and nonconformist throughout her life and in her work. She was known for her intensity and eccentricity. Writing in various genres, she produced Symbolist plays, such as The Rings [Kol’tsa] (1904) and The Singing Ass [Pevuchii osel], the novels Thirty-three Abominations [Tridtsat’-tri uroda] (1907) and The Tragic Menagerie [Tragicheskii zverinets] (1907), and other short stories, many of which were published only posthumously in the collection entitled No! [Net!] (1918). Zinovieva-Annibal is perhaps best known for Thirty-three Abominations, the first work of Russian literature to deal openly with the theme of lesbianism, which is portrayed in a decadent, tragic light. Like the short story ‘The Head of the Medusa,’ Thirty-three Abominations critiques the objectifying male gaze. The semi-autobiographical Tragic Menagerie, considered by critics to be her strongest work, is a female Bildungsroman, which traces the evolution of the heroine, Vera, from childhood to adulthood, when Vera is able ultimately to reconcile nature and culture on the Italian seashore.

A Space of “unwonted liberty and pleasure”

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-80
Author(s):  
Louise Willis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Charlotte Bronte ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Jane Eyre ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Female Bildungsroman ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
The Relationship

Gardening and botany emerged as independent and stimulating pursuits permitted, and even encouraged, for women, in the nineteenth century. Drawing on the cultural history of these pursuits, this paper examines how Charlotte Brontë uses gardens as critical sites in the Bildungsromans of Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe. I argue that corresponding to this culture, and given the restricted locations in which the traditional female Bildungsroman may play out, Brontë’s gardens function as sites of liberation and self-discovery and are a fundamental part of the heroines’ journey into adulthood. They become crucial places for communication, courtship, and power relations, and of escape, sanctuary and introspection; public yet private spaces in which young women might negotiate and discover an empowered self. Critics have tended to treat gardens in the Brontë novels as Edenic, or as having pedagogical or moral associations. But taking an ecofeminist approach, particularly drawing on Stacy Alaimo’s work on trans-corporeality, I argue that Charlotte Brontë actively interrogates the relationship between Victorian ideologies of nature and the construction of female selfhood. Brontë valorizes the natural environment that was being eroded and exploited, appropriating gardens as a feminine territory that sustains and enriches the individual, albeit within the safe bounds of the domestic sphere.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document