Özet:

Novelists such as Charlotte Brontë, Sevgi Soysal, and Latife Tekin have carved out a literary niche for themselves through their writings. These writers focused mainly on women characters mirroring gender restrictions in their milieu. When Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Soysal’s Tante Rosa (1968) and Tekin’s Sevgili Arsız Ölüm (1983) are compared within the framework of the bildungsroman, they have a lot in common in that they all tell the stories of female protagonists from childhood through adulthood. The authors also incorporate romantic elements, which are known for elevating subjectivity, childhood, imagination and nature. The most notable aspect of these female bildungsromans is that the awakening of the female characters to the social roles imposed on them by society is provided by the romantic tools. Thus, they acquire self-awareness and a sense of self. This study aims to compare the romantic elements in female bildungsromans Jane Eyre, Tante Rosa, and Sevgili Arsız Ölüm to show that the female characters in these novels gain self-development during their journeys from childhood to maturity. As the novels are written in different periods and societies, the effect of different cultural codes on the formation of women’s social roles and how women are represented in the novels are also discussed.