The Novel of Self-Discovery: A New Mode of Representation To Confront feminine Subjectivity

ABSTRACT

The genre ‘Novel of Self-discovery’ marks the re-emergence and renewal of the Bildungsroman as a literary structure relevant to women’s current experiences. The contemporary  genre of ‘Novel of Self-discovery’ outlines an obvious growth plot in which the female protagonist shifts from a condition of estrangement to a finding of female individuality through a procedure of going away from male-recognized principles. ‘The Novel of Self-discovery’ is suited to express the emergence of women from cultural conditioning into confrontation with institutional forces and into personhood. It in effect deals with the individual’s harmonious maturation. All the elements that constitute this self-maturation-like spiritual crisis, identification of one’s individuality, one’s responsibility in the society, become all the more relevant and significant in the case of heroines. These narratives of female self-discovery employ typical feminist literary techniques like sharing of experiences, storytelling, introspection and self-analysis through flash backs and interior monologues, giving shape to a separate genre which can be termed ‘Novel of Self-discovery’. The present paper highlights the major thematic and structural features of its fictional pattern.

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