Borders turning into escapes : a novel approach to borderscapes in Michelle Gallen's Bildungsromane "Big Girl, Small Town" and "Factory Girls"

Abstract

The protagonists of Michelle Gallen’s novels Big Girl, Small Town (2020) and Factory Girls (2022) both struggle with their coming-of-age process due to the remoteness of their hometowns and the lack of parental support and guidance. Considering the novels’ placement near the border of Northern Ireland, the context of border studies opens a wide range for interpreting Gallen’s Bildungsromane with a focus on the importance of borders in the life of her protagonists Majella and Maeve, respectively. Especially the area of investigating borderscapes - namely, the borders and their surrounding landscapes - is an effective tool to approach the Bildungsroman’s individual coming-of-age stages as the protagonists’ thresholds in their psychological, emotional, and moral development.