Literary Characters Versus Real People

For years, my thesis adviser kept telling me, "Clarissa, these are not real people you are discussing. These are characters. You are not analyzing historical accounts or ideological manifestos but works of art." I had no idea what she was trying to tell me and kept getting annoyed.

And then I started reading criticism on female novel of development and realized that the following argument keeps being offered by the critics who write on the subject: "Novels reflect reality. The reality of women in the 19th century was that they were miserable, stunted, and oppressed. After the women's liberation movements achieved important successes in the 1970ies, women became liberated, happy and a lot less oppressed. Ergo, novels about women written in the 19th century will be populated by oppressed, miserable female characters who are incapable of developing. After the 1970ies, novels will show crowds of happy, fulfilled female protagonists." 

When you start reading actual female Bildungsromane, you discover that both novels and reality are a lot more complex than such facile definitions allow us to imagine. These works of fiction do not conform to the critical expectations in the least. Often, they present the exact opposite of what the above-mentioned argument leads us to expect.

This is probably the rule of literary criticism that it took me the longest to learn: characters are not real people.

More on XIXth Century Female Characters

One of the most common responses that female characters of the XIXth century novels of growth and development have to being abandoned by their beloved, humiliated by acquaintances and rejected by family members is to seek employment. Even Fernan Caballero's goody-two-shoes character Gracia Vargas says, "I have hands, I can work" and rejects a former fiance who comes back to her in favor of independence and security (these are the actual words she uses) that work provides for her. Fernan Caballero was one of the most rabid conservatives of her times. She reminds me of Ann Coulter whenever I read her novels. Even she, however, created female characters who see work outside the home as a panacea for all women's problems.

There is nothing even remotely resembling this attitude among female characters of Bildungsromane published in the last three decades. What happens is the exact opposite. In Espido Freire's Irlanda, the main character murders her cousin who tells her that a woman can acquire power by becoming an executive or a banker. Freire is a young, quite progressive writer. She is no Fernan Caballero, and I'm sure that she is no fan of Ann Coulter either. And still, the very idea of having a life outside the home drives her character into a murderous rage.

I only discussed these two writers here but there are many more who do the same thing both in the XIXth and the XXth century. (And not only in Spain, of course.)

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight: A Fantasy of Helplessness

This is the promised review of Twilight, everybody. I did all I could to suffer through it. Now I'm due for some good reading because I feel like my brain has been polluted by the horrible writing in this book.

The genre of female coming-of-age stories, to which Meyer's Twilight obviously belongs, underwent a profound transformation in the recent decades. Since the inception of the genre in the 18th century, the central idea of female novels of growth and development was a conflict between the female protagonist and the repressive patriarchal society that strives to stunt her growth and infantilize her. The heroine struggles valiantly against the patriarchal authority that prevents her from developing into a fully grown individual in every sense of the word. Often, however, she loses in this struggle and either dies or consents to being transformed into a perennial child at the mercy of a husband, a father, a family member, etc.

When the women's liberation movement made huge advances in its feminist struggle, everybody expected female coming-of-age stories to reflect the changes in the position of women in society. Finally, we were to read female Bildungsromane where the protagonist takes on the world, grows, develops, and uses her newfound freedom to become a complete and fulfilled adult who does not permit others to stunt her growth. Finally.

These expectations, however, were not fulfilled by the works of literature created by female writers who live in this new, liberated reality. I initially observed this phenomenon in the contemporary Spanish literature but Twilight demonstrates that this tendency also exists in other countries that have made important feminist advances. The tendency I'm talking about consists of the appearance of a huge number of female coming-of-age stories where the female protagonist goes to incredible lengths to infantilize herself. No oppressive patriarchal society persecutes these heroines trying to stunt their growth. Just the opposite, the female characters of contemporary female Bildungsromane often have a lot more freedom than most actual women of that age.

Take Bella Swan, for example. She finds herself in a situation where her divorced parents remove themselves almost completely from the task of supervising her. Bella could use this freedom to explore different facets of growing up, experiment, develop in a variety of directions. However, just like so many female protagonists of such novels she chooses to hand the authority over her life to a male protector/savior and his clan. Bella infantilizes herself in a society where nobody demands that from her. She goes to extreme lengths to become a perennial child coddled and protected by the Cullens.

In this sense, Bella does not stray far from her mother whom she describes as lost and useless without male protection. This is how Bella talks about her mother:

I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still . . .

However, those protagonists of today's female Bildungsromane whose mothers are passionately feminist are as likely as Bella to stunt their own growth and infantilize themselves. Much has been said about the nature of Bella's relationship with Edward Cullen. While I was reading the novel, however, I couldn't help noticing how much their relationship resemble that between a very small child and her parent. She pesters him with questions (and if you have ever spent any time in the company of a three year old, you can't fail to see the resemblance), he watches over her as she sleeps, he is always there to protect her from the big, menacing world she does not comprehend.

Twilight is a particularly badly written representative of a powerful trend within the genre of female coming-of-age stories of our feminist era. Women are now in a position where they have to confront things that their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers never had to. Fantasies of helplessness, such as the Twilight Saga, allow female readers to imagine a world where they do not have to shoulder these new responsibilities. They can imagine themselves as eternal children supervised, protected and watched over by supernaturally strong and powerful men.

Now I have a few questions for my readers. The ideas I explore here are the ones that I developed in my doctoral dissertation. I want to spend this summer reworking it into a book. Did you find this post interesting? Easy to understand? Would you like to hear more on this subject? Any feedback will be welcome. Harsh criticisms will also be useful.