An Study On Antithetical Paired Protagonists In Toni Morrison’s Female Bildungsroman

The traditional notion of Bildungsroman characterizes a male protagonist whodisplays “heroic” achievements by overcoming social and moral obstacles, depicts anautonomous self and promotes ethical authority through the narrative. In opposition tothis traditional conception of the genre, several of Toni Morrison’s novels presentAfrican American female protagonists who inevitably lose the struggle against thedouble oppression of gender and race, fail to create authentic identity, and thus falter inthe pursuit of ethical and narrative authority.Based on this, this thesis will show that Morrison complicates the concept ofBildungsroman beyond the simple, ironic failure of her initiation protagonists. In fact,she creates a hybrid form of the Bildungsroman that is simultaneously both ironic andnon-ironic. To accomplish this paradox, she presents a set of paired protagonists in herfemale Bildungsroman: the protagonist, who serves as an anti-heroic female protagonist,failed in her initiation process and her non-ironic alternate, a secondary character with aseemingly lesser role, who by demonstrating strength and courage, triumphs in someway despite the enormity of culture and personal obstacles and finally fulfilled maturity.In The Bluest Eye, the realization of black female selfhood rests not on the majorprotagonist Pecola, but on the secondary character Claudia, who as eyewitness, totallynarrates Pecola’s rape story. In Sula, the major protagonist Sula dies to progress towardgenuine ethnic identity and freedom, while Nel, Sula’s soulmate, succeeded in reachingan epiphany at the end of the novel. Sethe, the running slave in Beloved, still seemsdependent and perplexed in the end, whereas Denver shows clear signs of an ability toforge independent and free identity in the future. Thus, Morrison refashions the femaleBildungsroman into a paradoxical form that demonstrates the birth of a new AfricanAmerican female Bildungsroman.Morrison creatively uses paired protagonists and paralleled narrative structure so asto break the bonds of traditional Bildungsroman in terms of form, content and significance. She vividly presents the difficult growing experience of black women, asthe same time she makes the genre of Bildungsroman more complex with a new socialsignificance.