'Nilda' de Nicholasa Mohr: El 'Bildungsroman' y la aparición de un espacio puertorriqueño en la literatura de los EEUU

In his classic study The Way of the World Franco Moretti argues that the characteristic journey from youth to maturity that the Bildungsroman narrates amounts to a symbolic representation of the integration of the bourgeoisie self into modernity. According to Moretti, this genre becomes obsolete by the end of the First World War, when the loss of faith in the civilizing ideals of modernity make it impossible to represent integration into a coherent social whole. However, many critics argue that the genre is being revitalized by writers who stand in the margins of modern society due to their gender, race or class. Nilda, by, Nicolasa Mohr, illustrates the transformations the Bildungsroman undergoes in the hands of the US born-and-raised Puerto Rican writer of the second half of the 20th century. In Nilda the education of the heroine does not symbolize the poor immigrant¿s successful acceptance and integration into mainstream culture. On the contrary, the awakening of the self serves as a metaphor for the appearance of a distinctive Puerto Rican space within the American literary experience, a complex space from which Mohr reaffirms her heritage while at the same time she critically examines pervading patriarchal roles within Puerto Rican culture.