In a way, Innocent Erendira is a bildungsroman, because Erendira is transported by the novel from her childish existence as a slave in a tyrannical family, to her adult, independent life. This happens because Erendira's grandmother purges Erendira of her innocence by forcing Erendira into prostitution over and over again. By exploiting the innocence of the granddaughter, the grandmother accidentally creates the kind of person who would be willing to exact justice for herself.
The story's crucial detail, therefore, is Erendira's decision to conspire to murder her grandmother, and whether she is morally justified, innocent of her crime, or whether she has allowed her character to be corrupted by evil. The title of the novel might be an indication about the novelist's own opinion on the subject matter, but the novel leaves the question open-ended.
An important aspect of this thematic question is the question of familial loyalty. Colombian culture tends to be very family-centric, which means that the premise of this novel is a spin on subject matters like loyalty and honoring one's family. Instead of showing a character who thrives by serving and honoring her elders, the main character is something of an anti-hero, because her freedom comes from her ability to take someone's life away.
This could be a depiction of inheritance. The story could easily be interpreted as a story about parental abuse, and the way in which the victims of severe abuse often have to come to terms with their abuse throughout their adolescence. For those people, the proper response to their inheritance is to reject it. That doesn't even have to be a literal inheritance, but rather, it could simply be that the person chooses to permanently cease communication with the parent or abuser, for freedom. This is what is represented by the murder—it represents the victim protecting themselves from further abuse by disabling of the abuser to continue.
