Reference:
Review Excerpts 'A considerable portion of mythology, religion, and literature is devoted to
the quest of the youthful self for identity, an adventure often formalized in a ritual
initiation into the mysteries of adulthood.... The concept of 'adolescence,' as a
period of some five to seven years following puberty in which a young person
learns the roles he or she must play in society, is a fairly recent development,
even more recent for girls than for boys.... Since adolescence, as a period of
education, was a late development in concepts of womanhood, many early
'coming-of-age' novels were structured around childhood initiation' (13).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | concept | education |
identity |
'The supreme goal of these novels of development is to groom the young
hero for marriage, and whereas younger girls are given tests in submission in a
general way, their older sisters are provided with models of behavior appropriate
for success in the marriage market' (14).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | 'In this most conservative branch of the woman's bildungsroman, then we
find a genre that pursues the opposite of its generic intent-- it provides models for
"growing down" rather than "growing up"' (14).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | genre | 'The authors' varied attitudes towards young women's social development
are also reflected in the mix of genres within the broader category of the novel of
initiation' (15-6).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | category |
'The adolescent girl, writes Simone de Beauvoir, will devote a special love
to Nature... she worships it.... Later, the mature woman hero tends to look back to
moments of naturistic epiphany as touchstones in a quest for her lost selfhood so
that when she readies herself for her midlife rebirth journey, images of the green
world remembered once more come to the fore.... Although most authors depict
the green world of the woman hero as a place from which she sets forth and a
memory to which she returns for renewal, there are a significant number of novels
in which nature is the protagonist's entire world' (16-7).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | epiphany | memory |
nature |
world |
'In regional, or local-color, fiction ... women often master the green world,
even to the extent that some farm it for produce ... The regionalist writers of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in both England and America, are thus
apt to make the hero's lifelong devotion to nature the center, rather than merely an
initiatory phase, of development' (18).
Domains: Under construction |
'Women find solace, companionship, and independence in nature'
(21).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | nature | 'In most women's novels the green world is present in retrospect, something
left behind or about to be left behind as one backs into the enclosure-- a state of
innocence that becomes most poignant as one is initiated into experience.... In
such cases the young woman turns away from "appropriate" males toward
fantasies of a figure, projected from within her own personality, more suitable to
her needs' (22).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | figure | state |
world |
Pratt writes of 'a destructive element that seems to accompany women
heroes whenever they experience truly satisfying Eros. The embodied lover is
sometimes embodied in real men during erotic epiphanies in women's fiction, but
such experiences are momentary and fleeting, giving way to events that act as
punishments.... When women heroes do seek erotic freedom, which we define
simply as the right to make love when and with whom they wish, they meet all the
opposition of the patriarchy' (24).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | 'The pursuit narrative in mythology often involved a green-world locale, an
island, "well," or grotto, invaded by men who rape the beneficent women
residents-- followed by an account of the destruction and theft of the area's
natural value.... Such traumas characterize the plot structure of gothic novels
where women heroes experience adventures in quest of true chivalry in
combination with the horror of pursuit and victimization by male villains'
(25).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | narrative | plot |
structure |
value |
'Otherwise conservative authors have included in their work feminist
critiques of the socioeconomic aspects of marriage' (26).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | 'The novel of development portrays a world in which the young woman hero
is destined for disappointment. The vitality and hopefulness characterizing the
adolescent hero's attitude toward her future here meet and conflict with the
expectations and dictates of the surrounding society' (29).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | world | 'In the modern period, women are described as paralyzed by a sense of
self-induces anomie or claustrophobia. The female adolescent hero
contemplates marriage with discomfort and terror.... In the writings of southern
American women novelists, we find intelligent, rebellious girls depicted as
grotesque in their alienation for the inflexible stereotype of the lady' (31).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | 'The orderly succession of stages characterizing the male bildungsroman is
disrupted since the role requirements for women are antithetical to maturation'
(34).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | role | 'In the women's novel of development (exclusive of the science fiction genre)
... the hero does not choose a life to one side of society after conscious
deliberation on the subject; rather she is radically alienated by gender-role norms
from the very outset' (36).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | genre | science |
Last Modified:
July-12-96 10:21:2
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