Born to disobey. Rebellion and growth in the contemporary female Bildungsroman

Abstract

This paper offers a pedagogical and narratological reflection on the female coming-of-age novel, focusing on disobedience as a transformative matrix of growth. In contrast to the tradition of the canonical Bildungsroman, which has historically privileged male subjects destined for integration into the adult world, contemporary narratives addressed to female childhood and adolescence outline formative paths marked by rupture, discontinuity, and choice. Through the analysis of four emblematic protagonists of the postmodern narrative imagination – Lyra Belacqua, Hermione Granger, Katniss Everdeen, and Nimona – the study examines how formative experience emerges as a gesture of resistance and identity redefinition. These figures, belonging to different genres and expressive forms – from fantasy to dystopia, including visual and graphic storytelling – share a narrative tension that challenges normative models of gender, power, and knowledge. Narrative is thus conceived as a symbolic device capable of activating educational processes and shaping cultural imagination, especially in the construction of female subjectivities during developmental age.