The bildungsroman and the female hero in the novels of Anita Brookner

Since the 1970s, feminist critics such as Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsch, Elizabeth Langland, and Susan J. Rosowski have been questioning and revising previous definitions of the Bildungsroman, or novel of development. These critics challenge the principal characteristics of the prototypical bildungsroman as embodied in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, arguing that female development has been excluded from the genre and that previous critics have failed to acknowledge that the genre's defining characteristics are both male-constructed and ideologically laden. This study of three of Anita Brookner's novels--The Debut, Hotel du Lac, and A Misalliance--as Bildungsromane was inspired by such revisionist, feminist critics and their examinations of female heroes in novels of development. I employ poststructuralist theory, relying especially upon the theoretical work by poststructuralist theory, relying especially upon the theoretical work by poststructuralist feminist critic Chris Weedon, to investigate the developmental processes of the heroines in Brookner's novels. Brookner, I argue, does not present her heroines as having essential selves, but rather illustrates how the various discourses of each woman's society affect her subjectivity. In particular, I contend that Brookner's Bildungsromane demonstrate how the societal discourses of a male-dominated and defined society prevent the heroines from developing into contented, independent women. According to my analysis, Brookner's presentation of the construction of the heroine's subjectivity and the narrative techniques she employs in this presentation greatly alter and reconfigure the traditional novel of development. My study examines three Brookner novels in relation to three "branches" of the novel of development--The Debut as an apprenticeship novel, or Bildungsroman; Hotel du Lac as an artist novel, or Kunstlerroman; and A Misalliance as a novel of awakening--and investigates how Brookner's novels relate to, challenge, and problematize the traditional defining characteristics of the novel of development. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...