Department or Program
English
Abstract
This honors thesis examines Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1961) and Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973) through the lens of gender, sexuality, and race using psychoanalytic theory to reinterpret the bildungsroman. Juxtaposing two mid-twentieth-century American women’s novels enables the displacement of the individualist definition of the classic white male coming of age plot to center the plot on women’s narratives, with the intention to refigure the term for an accurate representation of mid-century white and Black women’s development. Using Diana Fuss’s theory of queer “identification” as the starting point for readings of both novels (Identification Papers 1995), these interpretations will focus on the double and the Black girlfriend, patterns of violence, Catherine Belsey’s work on cultural ideology (Critical Practice, 1980), and semiotic theory.
Level of Access
Open Access
First Advisor
Houchins, Sue
Second Advisor
Freedman, Sanford
Date of Graduation
5-2019
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Recommended Citation
Kip, Lily, "De-Centering the Bildungsroman: Identification, Trauma, and the Female Double in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Toni Morrison’s Sula" (2019). Honors Theses. 303.
https://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses/303
Number of Pages
84
Open Access
Available to all.