Completing the divided self: Chicana revisions of the Bildungsroman

Criticism concerning the Bildrungsroman has long been dominated by the assumption that the conventions of the white, heterosexual male's maturation process define the genre. However, as ethnic and female voices have emerged within the American literary consciousness, new perspectives concerning coming-of-age narratives have also had to develop. This study is primarily concerned with identifying the ways that the Chicana protagonist, marginalized in both the Mexican and American cultures in which she exists, redefines the traditional conceptions of the Bildungsroman. Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street and the film, Real Women Have Curves, are used to demonstrate how the Chicana Bildungsheld is able to achieve the denouement of self-assertion only through continual negotiation of her place within her two cultures, a process with includes the rejection of the prescribed roles within those societies and realization that the location of her authentic self exists, simultaneously, within the borders of two worlds.