ABSTRACT This thesis examines Franziska zu Reventlow's novel Ellen Olestjerne in which Reventlow creates a heroine who reaches intellectual, emotional, and educational maturity exclusively outside of the established constructs and definitions of patriarchal Wilhelmine society. Given that the Bildunsgroman was a hitherto almost exclusively male genre, this thesis aims to prove, based on Reventlow's novel, the existence of a possible alternative and "female" Bildunsgroman, and all that this entails. The first chapter of this study establishes the theoretical framework for the possibilities and problematic of female Bildunsgroman by examing the overall historic, thematic, and formal context of the genre. The second approaches the Selsbtbefreiung, or the difficult process of the liberation of the heroine from all external constraint and definition, an indispensable element of a female Bildunsgroman. Lastly, the third chapter treats of Selbsterfindung or, self-reinvention of the heroine. Her path, it is argued, is, as woman, more one painful self-reinvention than of simple self-discovery, since she must radically reshape herself and her image of an autonomous female identity against all prevailing definitions in order to ultimately reach harmony with herself and her environment, a harmony she paradoxically achieves by flouting all societal convention. The study of Ellen Olestjerne leads to the conclusion that there is indeed a female Bildungsroman: for the heroine achieves both her Selbsterfindung and reconciliation with life and the human collectivity, but in an unprecedentedly radical fashion, which shows the deep originality of both the author and her novel. / SOMMAIRE Il est communément admis que le genre Bildungsroman, soit, en raison de la notion d'éducation, exclusivement masculin. Par contre, il s'agit ici de démontrer le pendant féminin de ce genre en étudiant le cheminement intellectuel, affectif et éducationnel de l'héroïne éponyme dans Ellen Olestjerne de Franziska zu Reventlow. Le premier chapitre de cette analyse met en place le cadre théorique où sera définit le Bildungsroman féminin. Le deuxième aborde le Selsbtbefreiung, la libération de l'héroïne, élément indissociable du pendant féminin du genre. Enfin, le troisième chapitre traite sur le Selbsterfindung de l'héroïne, qui doit se réinventer une définition en dehors des normes patriarcales pour atteindre l'harmonie avec soi-même et avec son milieu. L'étude d'Ellen Olestjerne mène à la conclusion qu'il existe en effet le Bildungsroman féminin, l'héroïne atteint son Selbsterfindung d'une manière extrêmement radicale, elle refuse toute conception préconçue de sa féminité par le patriarcat, et se crée de toutes pièces une identité conforme à ses valeurs. Mots clés Bildungsroman féminin, Lebensrecht, Selbstbefreiung, parthénogenèse féminine, Selbsterfindung, Paradiesstufe
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.32421 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Garcia Hernandez, Paula |
| Contributors | Paul Peters (Internal/Supervisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of German Studies) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | Electronically-submitted theses. |
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