abstract: This project examines C.L.R. James, V.S. Naipaul, and George Lamming's appropriation of the European Bildungsroman, a novel depicting the maturation of the hero prompted by his harmonious dialectical relationship with the social realm (Bildung). I contend that James, Naipaul, and Lamming use the Bildungsroman genre to critique colonialism's effects on its subjects, particularly its male subjects who attend colonial schools that present them with disconcerting curricula and gender ideologies that hinder their intellectual and social development. Disingenuously cloaked in paternalistic rhetoric promising the advancement of "uncivilized" peoples, colonialism, these novels show, actually impedes the development of its subjects. Central to these writers' critiques is the use of houses, space, and land. Although place functions differently in Minty Alley, A House for Mr. Biswas, and In the Castle of My Skin, the novels under consideration here, the corresponding relationship between a mature, autonomous self and a home of one's own is made evident in each. Tragically, the men in these novels are never able to find communities in which they cease to feel out of place, nor are they ever able to find secure domestic spaces. Because the discourse of home so closely parallels the discourse of Bildung, I contend that the protagonists' inability to find stable housing suggests the inaccessibility of Bildung in a colonized space. Further, I assert that this literal homelessness is symbolic of the educated male's cultural exile; he is unable to find a location where he can live in dialectical harmony with any community, which is the ideal aim of Bildung. Leaving the Caribbean proves to be the colonized male's only strategy for pursuing Bildung; thus, these novels suggest that while Bildung is impossible in the Caribbean, it is not impossible for the Caribbean subject. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

This thesis examines the patterns of the contemporary female Bildungsroman in terms of the female and male patterns of the protagonist using two contemporary Bildungsromans; Judith Schalansky’s Der Hals der Giraffe and Linda Solanki’s Dem See entlang Richtung verlorene Jugend. The contemporary protagonists are put into comparison to the traditional ones of the 18th and 19th century, when the Bildungsroman emerged as a genre. The traditional protagonists were bound to different experiences depending on their gender, and this thesis examines how the contemporary protagonists have evolved, and if the female protagonists are showing tendencies towards traditional female or male patterns.

This thesis examines the patterns of the contemporary female Bildungsroman in terms of the female and male patterns of the protagonist using two contemporary Bildungsromans; Judith Schalansky’s Der Hals der Giraffe and Linda Solanki’s Dem See entlang Richtung verlorene Jugend. The contemporary protagonists are put into comparison to the traditional ones of the 18th and 19th century, when the Bildungsroman emerged as a genre. The traditional protagonists were bound to different experiences depending on their gender, and this thesis examines how the contemporary protagonists have evolved, and if the female protagonists are showing tendencies towards traditional female or male patterns.

In this essay the main aim is to consider Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials with its female protagonist as a Bildungsroman. The principal source of the study is Jerome Buckley’s Season of Youth – The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Buckely’s presentation of the significant characteristics of the Bildungsroman will be applied to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials in order to explore if these characteristics are present, modified or not, in the trilogy.   The second aim is to investigate how His Dark Materials relates to the patterns of the hero’s journey. In order to approach this question, Joseph Campbell’s work The Hero with a Thousand Faces is applied as a main source.    Since most material concerning both the Bildungsroman and the hero’s journey are from a male point of view and concern males, the female perspective will be represented by Susan Fraiman and Linda Wagner who both write about females and the bildung narrative.   In the section called The Story of Lyra, the trilogy is summarized briefly in order to give the reader a chance to understand what the trilogy is about. In the conclusion, Lyra’s development and (hero)-journey are discussed.     The final claim of the study is that His Dark Materials can be considered a Bildungsroman and the patterns of the hero journey are found in the story about Lyra, but with some differences from her male counterparts.

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My purpose in writing this collection of lyric essays is to examine my evolution during one decade, from age 19 to 29. Essential questions have guided me: What stimulated change? What formed my decisions? What predisposed me to my relationship with my partner? Why did I want to have a child? What kind of relationship do I have with my son? How did my relationship with my partner evolve? Why did we decide to leave Miami? Hopefully, I have given the reader a glimpse into my movement from self-centeredness to motherhood, from aloof adolescent to committed partner, from timid daughter to self-aware individual. The nature of my inquiry led me to confessional conclusions that clarified my reactive behavior or lack of initiative, which my initial memories of the same events often disguised. These confessions are sometimes as satisfying as the more celebratory moments themselves, because they challenge older notions of self and invite the possibility of change. Specific authors who have provided models of substance and style include, but are not limited to Annie Dillard, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sharon Olds, Michael Ondaatje, and Richard Rodriguez. I use lyrical techniques to translate my experiences into crafted prose. I incorporate recurring lines to create links between essays that stand alone, thereby forming a sequence. Some experiences are so personal and specific to me that using an adopted form, such as a repurposed fairy tale, a cento, and the inverted pyramid, has allowed me to create a measure of distance from the subject, which I found necessary for rendering it clearly. I allude to specific songs to help me establish exposition and lend tone and texture to my scenes. I chose to use the second person and direct my words to a specific audience, such as my mother, my partner, or my son, because at times it feels more authentic to let the reader listen to the way I speak to that person than to tell about the relationship. I also chose to capture the voices of certain people speaking directly to me in order to establish the most authentic speaker. My effort to answer essential questions sometimes conjured scenes from the distant past. I use line breaks to let the reader fill in the gaps or make the leap to explore connections across time. Juxtaposition and prolepsis link these tableaus so the reader can see my life and uncover the answers along with me.

Taking into account an indigenous pre-colonial, a European colonial and a hybrid postcolonial history, in addition to cruel post-independence authoritarian regimes, postcolonial literatures reflect very often the difficult experiences of nations who struggle to find their identities. This is the case of Equatorial Guinea, whose writers, many of them in exile, use their works to raise both national and international awareness about the miserable conditions of a people suffering the consequences of colonialism and two dictatorships. One of these writers is Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel (1966), the subject of this thesis. This dissertation explores how Ávila Laurel’s writings dialogue with Western literary tradition to represent a postcolonial society still in the process of nation-building. In the second chapter, we study Avión de ricos, ladrón de cerdos (2008) as a picaresque novel, and in the third, Arde el monte de noche (2009) as a Bildungsroman. After presenting an overview of the main characteristics of these genres, we demonstrate the similarities of Ávila Laurel’s narratives with the canonical texts, and at the same time, how their rewriting in a postcolonial context leads to fundamental revisions. The final chapter is devoted to Ávila Laurel’s blog Malabo that he has been publishing in the digital journal FronteraD since 2009. We understand his blog as the author’s effort to write political essay, a genre with a longstanding tradition, benefitting from the advantages the new media and communication tools provide. As we argue in this thesis, the author uses Western literary genres that also surfaced in times of deep social and political crisis, to protest against poverty, corruption and abuse of authority, and to denounce hypocrisy and the persistence of colonial and neocolonial structures in Equatorial Guinea. Writing from a hybrid “third space,” Ávila Laurel’s works are, above all, a desire to tell a collective story and create an archive for generations to come.

<p>My dissertation “Aspirations and Ambivalences of New Woman: French and Chinese Women’s Press and Fiction, 1900-1930” seeks to foster a global understanding of the dilemmas faced by “New Woman” in France and China in the early twentieth century. The thesis operates on two levels: press and fiction, and focuses on three central aspects of women’s lives: heterosexual love, professionalization, and singlehood. It is the first book-length project on the topic in which the East and West converge. </p><p>Studying feminist periodicals, I investigate two opposing discourses in the first chapter: the nationalist and anti-nationalist feminisms. I argue that both French republican feminism and Chinese nationalist feminism appropriated motherhood to defend women’s rights to education and women’s status at home. Along the anti-nationalist axis, I identify the anarcho-feminism in France and China, which remains understudied in current scholarship. I observe that Chinese anarcho-feminism is deeply influenced by French individualist anarchism through the bridge of Chinese anarchists in Paris. Together, they contributed to the plurality and complexity of first-wave feminism and challenged the nationalist feminist discourse.</p><p>Chapter two shifts from studying periodicals to the textual analysis of fiction centered on heterosexual relations. Informed by psychoanalysis, this chapter frames free love discourse as synonymous with the free expression of individuality. Departing from previous scholarship, I highlight the violent and exclusionary nature of free love, which leads to heroines’ death and rejection of other forms of love. Meanwhile, I propose that French protagonists embrace a new philosophical model of love based on preserving one’s individuality instead of the age-old love model of “merging," which obscures women's identity.</p><p>Chapter three employs sociological theories of professionalization to analyze women’s unique challenges and solutions to negotiating family and career. I argue that the female Bildungsroman in the early twentieth century exhibits narrative features different from its nineteenth-century predecessors: the trajectory of girls' development is expanded to include schools and workplaces; love ceases to be the only theme dominating women’s narratives; supportive female communities populate women’s fiction.</p><p>The fourth chapter highlights the singlehood that Chinese and French heroines both embrace as a valid life alternative. I investigate the motivations behind singlehood as well as its social stigmatization. Whereas heroines consider singlehood a valid option, their choice imposes a tremendous emotional and social price. I argue that the ideological tension between single women and the larger society lies mainly in contrasting views about female singlehood: it is conceived by female protagonists as a sign of independence and a means of self-preservation, but as a radical renunciation of femininity by society. </p>

Motherhood and maternity are common themes in Nicaraguan author Gioconda Belli’s (1948–) writings, but in Waslala (2006) her exploration of the mother figure dives further into what a relationship with such a figure provides. Through a development narrative, parallel to that of female Bildungsroman and quest-romance, the protagonist, Melisandra, grows in maternal history and culture in her search for mother. This thesis uses the theories of Carol Christ, Dana Heller, Joseph Campbell and others to see Melisandra’s odyssey through the lens of a quest narrative. Along this journey, two maternal figures play an important role in preparing her for her climactic reunion with her own biological mother. They both teach and give examples of female strength and authority that Melisandra then emulates. As Melisandra discovers and forms her own identity, she finds herself in a pivotal position that intertwines her quest with that of her community’s. Upon leaving the utopian Waslala where she meets her mother, it becomes apparent that the mother has become central for both Melisandra’s personal identity and that of her community. Ultimately, the trajectory of Melisandra’s journey shows the archetype and figure of the mother as paramount for growth, development, and self-actualization.

This dissertation examines the subject formation of racially ambiguous protagonists in K Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents, (2001), Yewande Omotoso’s Bom Boy (2011) and Zoe Wicomb’s Playing in the Light (2006), three Bildungsromane set in post-apartheid Cape Town—the mother city—whose violent, racist histories of colonial encounters, slavery and apartheid have led to a strong social sense of racial group belonging and racial exclusion. It is between and among these strictly policed racial groups that these novels’ protagonists seek belonging and a place in society from which to act and speak. Although different aspects of racial ambiguity are foregrounded in these novels—namely phenotypical, cultural and political—these protagonists are all socially marginalised and they must form their identities and subjectivities at the intersections of social trauma and personal trauma brought about and catalyzed by the racist history and current socio-cultural formations in South Africa. Across the two socioscapes of society and family, this trauma is manifest as a gap in language—there is no affirming or cogent racial subject position for these figures from which to speak—and at the level of the body, where circulations of feeling produce the racially ambiguous body as abject or non-existent. As a sub-genre, the post-colonial Bildungsroman has been widely appraised as reconfiguring the thematic, structural and narrative traditions of its classical European counterpart, and my dissertation argues that these novels support this understanding. I also claim that they trace their racially ambiguous protagonists’ subject formation not from an initial subject position of self-centered, willful childhood innocence and ignorance but from a state of non-subjectivity into existence itself—proposing that the trajectories of the novels trace an ontological rather than ideological shift.