About the Development of Women during the XIXth Century

What follows is a review of Maier by Aka, Javier, Mayorga, Rasura and Salas

How does a person experience different characteristics to develop their uniqueness? Bildungsroman tries to understand this question because according to its’ definition, it is the development of a character due to different characteristics. During the Victorian Era, the youth was captured and represented by a symbolic concentrate of tensions and uncertainties thus forming and shaping a person. The article, “Portrait of the girl-child: Female Bildungsroman in Victorian Fiction,” by Sarah E. Maier, goes in depth of the possibilities of being a female in the Victorian era by demonstrating how two girls in different novels, became women, and describe the challenges they faced in order to do so.

“Portraits of the Girl-child: Female Bildungsroman in Victorian Fiction,” explores the construction and development of two girls. It begins with stating that the development of males was more common in the Victorian era. The Bildungsroman includes the character development and construction of a child in fiction and is an exploration of “becoming”; This is why in such literature children and youth are important. Additionally, the article is about how gender modifies structure because of social pressures. This is why it is different when analyzing the Bildungsroman of a female.

The article explores the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and Mill on the floss by George Eliot. In Jane Eyre, Jane struggles due to the patriarchal institution, and because of the repression of individuality and “complicity of her own sex.” She struggles in society due to the lack of place, money, prestige and beauty. Jane tries to become a socially acceptable woman. She is able to have success when transitioning from childhood to womanhood, but Maggie does not have success and struggles through the transition. In Mill on the floss, Maggie has a past that is “history and not herstory.”  Maggie has more trouble transitioning into womanhood and is entangled into her problems, which prevents her from growth and individuality. Part of the reason for the constrainment of Maggie’s growth is due to the uneven distribution of privileges between men and women in society, specifically in novels.

Novels of nineteenth century show that the interest in development was centered around males, and if a woman wrote about womanhood, there was a difference in how it was written about, in comparison to the perspective of a male. For example, the word choices and descriptions that were used by women made other people who were reading about it want to look further into the development of a young girl as a child, and how it affects the way they are shaped as they grow and become women. Bildungsroman demonstrates the development of a character. The article describes that a character’s development is influenced by the experiences the character has, and the role that their childhood plays in helping them create their own identity; this is what Bildungsroman is about. Maier states that women had a constant reminder of the dependency that kept them restricted. A male for example, had certain privileges that women were not granted because of the constraints they had, which would cause males to describe the forming of their identity to be different to a woman’s description.

The article allows for further understanding of young women’s needs in order to establish their place in society. If a girl was to take a path to become successful it would be considered “extraordinarily progressive” because of the fact that in society during that time it was rare for a woman to succeed. The problem is that women were taught to “grow down” rather than “to grow up.” This method forced women to have low-self-esteem because they knew their lives would not be as significant as they thought they would be.

Society has encouraged women to remain selfless rather than to reflect on their experiences and grow up. Women are expected to maintain acceptability within society.The women in this story battle harsh realities and a set of high standards when transitioning into womanhood. In both novels, the girls had to learn to overcome the challenges that society had set before them during the Victorian era to create a new identity.


See: Maier, S. E. (2007), Portraits of the Girl-Child: Female Bildungsroman in Victorian Fiction. Literature Compass, 4: 317–335. doi:10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00411.x