ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

The Evolving Self:

Postmodern Coming-of-Age Novels

By Women Writing in the United States

By

Karen L. Rose

Doctor of Philosophy in English

University of California, Los Angeles, 2001

Professor Sonia Saldívar-Hull, Chair

The Evolving Self: Postmodern Coming-of-Age Novels by Women Writing in the United States examines contemporary expressions of the genre of the Bildungsroman. Rather than focusing on one individual’s development at the expense of an analysis of wider social issues, the novels discussed in this study underscore the tremendous effects of cultural and political forces on maturing young women, thus calling attention to the need for social change. In their depiction of young women who struggle with and are resistant to oppressive histories; the stifling expectations of society and family; and/or limitations due to class, race, gender, the novels included in this study may be viewed as political oppositional texts. Chapter One discusses the literary tradition of the Bildungsroman and draws on contemporary feminist theories to describe the writers’ strategies at re-working this traditionally bourgeois form. Chapter Two discusses Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones and Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, paying particular attention to the protagonists’ conflicted relationships with their mothers and the consequences of post-colonialism and cultural displacement on their search for self. Chapter Three explores representations of “white trash” in Carolyn Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, focusing on the tragic consequences of class-based discrimination and the political implications that under gird the image of the female body as a “battleground.” Chapter Four examines the complex manner in which identity is related to place in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street and Helena María Viramontes’ Under the Feet of Jesus, describing the protagonists’ progression towards an awareness of the significance of helping others. The most striking element that the ideologically diverse novels included in this study have in common is their refusal to conclude. The open-ended, anti-conclusions that they share are, however, fitting for a genre that in its contemporary manifestation demonstrates that identity is not fixed and consequently, that defining oneself is an ongoing process. In fact, given that these texts focus on process and potentiality, implying that a fixed conclusion would deprive youth of its meaning, it is appropriate that the novels’ endings are, in many ways, only the beginning.