Queering gender in contemporary female Bildung narrative

• Authors: Soňa Šnircová
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper explores, in the context of feminist discussions about the Bildungsroman, a contemporary British novel that offers shocking images of female coming of age at the turn of the millennium. Queering gender and introducing male elements into the heroine’s process of maturation, the analysed novel appears to raise questions about the continuous relevance of the feminist distinction between male and female version of the genre. The paper however argues that although significantly rewriting both female Bildung and pornographic narratives, Helen Walsh’s Brass can still be read as a variation of the female Bildungsroman and an example of its contemporary developments.

Keywords

EN

female Bildugsroman; male Bildungsroman; feminism; Helen Walsh; genderqueer

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Journal of Language and Cultural Education
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 135-143

Dates

published

2015-09-01

online

2015-10-15

Contributors

author

Soňa Šnircová

• Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Petzvalova 4, Košice, Slovakia

References

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• Buckley, J. H. (1974). Season of youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP.
• Curry, R. C. (1998). ‘I ain’t no friggin’ little wimp’: The girl ‘I’ narrator in contemporary fiction. In Saxton, R. O. (Ed). The girl: Construction of the girl in contemporary fiction by women (pp. 95-105). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Ellis, L. (1999). Appearing to diminish: Female development and the British Bildungsroman, 1750-1850. London: Associated UP.
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• Walsh, H. 2004. Brass. Edinburgh: Cannongate.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/jolace-2015-0027