THE FEMALE 'BILDUNGSROMAN' IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, A COMPARATIVE STUDY: DOROTHY RICHARDSON, SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, DORIS LESSING, CHRISTA WOLF

This comparative study, the first of its kind, addresses itself to the absence of the female heroine in the nineteenth century Bildungsroman tradition, wherein the novel of development heretofore depicted the male hero. Its central thesis is that this literary vehicle for female development was not accessible to the heroine before the twentieth century, before cultural and social structures supported the possibility of women engaged in a process of self-knowledge and self-fulfillment. A pattern now emerges for the twentieth century female Bildungsroman.; The novelists selected, who held out the promise of Bildung, or development of the total personality, are all women. Novels included are: Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage, IV Volumes; Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter; Doris Lessing's Children of Violence, V Volumes; Christa Wolf's The Quest for Christa T.; Although these novelists have been the object of considerable scholarship, former critical evaluations have been made through means other than genre study; i.e., the Bildungsroman. In this comparative study of Richardson, Beauvoir, Lessing, Wolf--English, French, South African, East German, respectively--the approach through a Bildungsroman study has yielded a rewardingly consistent pattern. The pattern arose from the structure of the work itself, and from the affinity each bore to the themes treated in a traditional Bildungsroman.; Thematic discussion of each novel includes self-realization and discovery; education; male/female roles; inner and outer directedness; autobiographical elements; career; attitude toward marriage; philosophical questions; and, where applicable, religious crisis.; While some themes share common grounds with the male counterpart of the genre, differences abound. The most dramatic departure is the inclusion of feminine consciousness; while the problem of sex role for the female far outweighs that for the male hero. For the female heroine womanhood is often the obstacle to her development and the age boundaries by which the traditional hero achieves fulfillment are extended in the female Bildungsroman. Career goals, too, are differently realized by the female heroine.; The novel which deviates from the pattern and adheres less to thematic control is that of Christa Wolf's which deals more with the interrelationship of the private sector with the public sphere.