@MASTERSTHESIS{ 2019:681905934,
 	title = {“It’s time you started bein’ a girl” : to kill a  mockingbird, a female  bildungsroman},
 	year = {2019},
 	url = "http://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/8497",
 	abstract = "This master’s thesis presents an analysis of North-American author Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) in the light of the female Bildungsroman. We aim to focus on the theoretical definitions of the novel’s subgenre and how they feature in Lee’s novel and possibly propose new definitions. The question that aims to be answered with this work is: What essentially causes To Kill a Mockingbird to be categorized as a female Bildungsroman? Scout, the protagonist/narrator in To Kill a Mockingbird, reports a period of her life which was marked by decisive events to the girl’s personal development. Through her journey, Scout relies on the support of her intimate relations, such as her father Atticus, her brother Jem, and Calpurnia, the family cook, as primary references for the development of her identity. Scout must also go through the conflicting moment in her life when social expectations which dictate what it means to be a woman or, in her case, what it means to be a girl, are suddenly imposed to her. At the same time, the girl observes how the trial of a black man accused of rape by a white woman unfolds within a deeply racist community and the combination of all these factors cause her to gradually lose her innocence. The fundamental authors for this thesis are Morgenstern (2009), Dilthey (1997), Lukács (1998), Mann (apud BRUFORD 2009) and Bakhtin (1986), regarding the traditional concept of Bildungsroman. For the approach to the female literary tradition and the female Bildungsroman, Gilbert and Gubar (2000), and Abel, Hirsch, and Langland (1983) are the main authors who complemented the theoretical background for this research. This thesis has evidenced that the characteristics of To Kill a Mockingbird’s narrative correspond to the definitions of the concept of female Bildungsroman and that it might propose new definitions for the narrative subgenre; for instance, a revision of the narrative of apprentice structure, and how a protagonist initially raised mostly unfamiliar to the pressures of gender roles develops a more autonomous personality than other female Bildungsroman protagonists who are raised within the limitations of such social expectations.",
 	publisher = {Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul},
 	scholl = {Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras},
 	note = {Escola de Humanidades}
}