Abstract
This paper explains the typical elements found in the literary genre known as Bildungsroman and then looks at the influence this particular genre had on English Victorian novels. The paper discusses three famous English novels and explains how they are examples of this genre.

From the Paper
"When you read early nineteenth century novels, you notice some similarities between them with regard to construction and development of their characters. These similarities are due to the genre in which many Victorian novels fall, widely known as Bildungsroman. Bildungsroman as a genre took birth in Germany from where it came to England and affected literature of that time so much so that despite the uniqueness of each novel of that era, there are many similarities that force us to put them all under one single category."

Tags:Charlotte, Bronte, Jane, Eyre, Charles, Dickens, Great, Expectations, Mary, Shelley, Frankenstein

Abstract
This paper presents an in-depth study of a Bildungsroman (coming-of-age) theme and Freud's theories of sexuality and gender as they apply to the Henry James novel "What Maisie Knew." The paper discusses the basis of Sigmund Freud's theories on the development of infantile/childhood sexuality and relates this to the novel. The paper presents examples from the story to support the discussion.

From the Paper
"What Maisie Knew is a complex tale with a central coming-of-age theme, indicating the presence of both Freudian theories on sexuality and gender, and various components of a Bildungsroman novel. These classifications can be directly correlated with the detailed development of Henry James' title character, whom author Thomas Jeffers describes in his book Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana, as "a sort of Alice who, if she were totally luckless, could become a sort of Lolita" (Jeffers 106)."

Tags:coming-of-Age, gender, sexuality

Abstract
This paper reviews Nick Hornsby's novel "High Fidelity." It discusses the general plot of the novel and describes, in detail, the role of the character Rob Fleming in the plot. The paper compares the character of Rob to the traditional Bildungsroman character and suggests that he does not fit with this typical role. It describes scenes and narratives of Rob's to explain this view-point.

From the Paper
"Eventually, by the end of the novel, Rob begins to acknowledge Laura's humanity as well as his own. This separates him from his friends: "'we're not as bad as you think, Rob.' 'You couldn't be. Look, Barry. There's going to be people from Laura's work there, people who own dogs and babies and Tina Turner albums. How are you going to cope with them?'" (303) Rob has, like the Bildungsroman hero, become integrated into a larger society and become a man and learned to judge persons on more meaningful criteria than their love of counter-cultural music on LPs. But rather than suggest that this is a loss of youth, ingenuity, and vitality, Rob's maturity comes to Laura, to the reader, and ultimately to himself as a relief, as this maturity has been long overdue."

Tags:maturity, humanity, intellectual

Abstract
This paper explains that gothic novels often establish a sense of mystery which is aided, to a greater or lesser extent, by some involvement with supernatural forces, often relying on religious
conventions for expression in the text. In Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", this sense of religious or supernatural mystery allows Jane to expostulate from her double-narrative point of view on the suspicious happenings at Thornfield House, where Jane is employed as a governess. The author points out that the role of religion can be seen in many ways in the novel using the characters Mr. Brocklehurst, St. John Rivers, Jane (the protagonist) and Rochester as the opposite of the role of religion. The paper relates that "Jane Eyre" takes place in a
society plagued by situations in which women are regarded as religious angels who are kept in a state of either decorative consumption or holistic servitude.

From the Paper
"When Jane is relating to Mr. Brocklehurst at the school, he is a religious figure who gives mandates and constantly draws attention to the faults of others. Like St. John Rivers later in the novel, this character represents what Jane sees to be religious authority, and its goal towards her life is apparently repressive in nature. "And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition to not particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses, and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved
below me. (He said) 'You see she is yet young... Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her?'" (Bronte). It can be seen therefore that Brocklehurst represents a sort of oppression over Jane in terms of influencing perceptions of her early in the novel."

Tags:bildungsroman, supernatural, mystery, double-narrative, women

Abstract
This paper relates that Seamus Deane's novel "Reading in the Dark" is part autobiographical and many of the recounted intricate events actually have taken place. The author points out that the text is partially a Bildungsroman because, in the first part of the narrator's life it recounts many obstacles; however, unlike in a Bildungsroman, the greatest part of these obstacles remain unresolved as the story comes full circle and the reader finds the narrator in the very same place. The paper concludes that "Reading in the Dark" is an excellent source of historical documentation on Irish culture because the history of the boy's family parallels the history of Ireland itself in its troubled past, full of violence and political secrecy. The paper includes several quotations.

From the Paper
"The novel revolves around a mystery that makes it resemble a detective story to a certain extent: the disappearance of Uncle Eddie, who is supposed to have been an informer for the IRA. The truth emerges gradually, and the boy narrator who tries to make sense of his family's story is not fully aware of the whole truth until the last part of the novel. The maze of facts and secrecy that involve almost all the members of the boy's family, both close and distant, already plunges the reader into the troubled and heavy atmosphere that the novel is charged with from beginning to the end."

Tags:bildungsroman, mystery, autobiographical, disappearance, family

Abstract
This paper examines how the Victorian era was one of change and how the rise of phenomena such as Darwinism, industrialism and urbanism undermined or challenged many of the traditions and beliefs of the population. It shows how the result was a population void of identity and how the simultaneous rise of the Bildungsroman seems to have be remedial to this problem, as the conclusion of such novels involved the arrival to spiritual solace and integrity. It looks at how George Eliot's "Middlemarch" and Charles Dickens' "Hard Times" both contain strong elements of Bildungsroman, although their methods and style differ significantly in documenting such a growth to maturity.

From the Paper
"Dorothea Brooke's experience in Middlemarch is an educational one. From the opening of the novel she keen to define her role in life. She is full of "Puritan energy", and therefore extremely pious. This leads her to refuse anything she considers an indulgence. She attempts to justify her attraction towards her late mother's jewels by saying that "they are like fragments of heaven", and referring to the gems used "as spiritual revelations in the Revelations of St. John". However she refuses to wear them, dressing "not less bare of style than the Blessed Virgin" on appearing to the "Italian Painters". She also gives up horse riding because she "think[s] it wrong for [her]". .....Hard Times is essentially a fable. This is evident from the outset mainly through Dickens' nomenclature. He calls his archetypal industrial town "Coketown", which in itself suggests a sooty and modern establishment. He calls the factory owner "Mr. Gradgrind", suggesting mechanisms and automation, and the local "model school" teachers "Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild". This has the effect of converting the characters into representatives of a certain theme or philosophy, and the author is no longer bound to produce a realistic or diverse personality. This is essential for Dickens as he intended to use Hard Times as a parable to highlight the potential destructiveness of utilitarianism and the Fact mentality, and can thus use some characters to epitomize utilitarian values, and others to epitomize its alternative psyches. For this reason Dickens' account of Louisa Gradgrind's growth to spiritual adulthood is less complex than that of Dorothea, although they do share significant parallels and contrasts."

Tags:bildungsroman, society, dorothea, utilitarianism

Abstract
This paper explains that the novel "1959" by Thulani Davis narrates the custom of passage of Katherine "Willie" Tarrant. By using a first-person narrator, Davis presents a suggestive description of a young African-American teenager living in the 1950s, which was a period weighed down by injustice and increasing ethnic conflict. The author relates that "1959" is often praised for its fusion of the historic and the fictional. The use of the juvenile narrative voice places the novel within the tradition of the female Bildungsroman.

Table of Contents:
Summary
Themes and Meanings
Critical Context

From the Paper
"Willie's remarkable teacher, Mae Taliaferro, rigorously prepares her students for the possible move. She refuses to teach the erroneous and biased material covered in the out-of-date textbooks that the all-white board of education has provided for the Wells students. One of the board members, Herman Shaw, is outraged by what he, a white supremacist, views as Mae's teaching of communist thought, and he calls for her dismissal. The African American community, however, stands behind Taliaferro, and Shaw's edict is dismissed."

Tags:teenage progenitor, personal history, community, female bildungsroman

Abstract
This paper explains that these maturation novels are a genre of literature called Bildungsroman, German for "formation novel", in which the main character usually is involved in a crisis and ends up recognizing his role in the world, a process that is usually typical of the maturation of the character throughout the story. The author points out that in these stories the process is an intellectual and moral growth: "The Open Boat", the growth is caused by experience, allowing the correspondent to finally feel the loss of the soldier through his comrade; "Flight", the growth takes place in the journey of a boy too eager to be a man; "The Gilded Six Bits" a full transformation from boy to man takes place as the character learns to deal with his emotions, feelings and responsibility; "The Boy Who was Almost a Man", the character never quite fully completes the maturity process, but the reader is taken through his bumpy ordeal. The paper concludes that all of these growths are very real and natural, leaving the reader with a new sense of understanding in this process of self-development and change.

From the Paper
"In Wright's "The Man Who was Almost a Man," the journey of maturing into manhood is left unfinished. Dave Saunders, although thinking otherwise, never becomes a man. Dave sees men in the field one-day shooting, so he decides to purchase a gun. He associates the obtaining of a gun with becoming a man; to him the gun represents manhood. The pistol also has phallic connotation as well. After accidentally shooting the mule, Dave is not received by the other men around him, causing him to run away in search of acknowledgment somewhere else. He practices shooting, hesitant at first with his eyes closed and his head turned, he fires the pistol. It isn't until after he has fired the pistol that he realizes it wasn't as scary as he made it out to be. Once he overcomes this small hurdle he immediately feels he is a man."

Tags:bildungsroman, transformation, crisis, character, self-development

Abstract
This paper explains that Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse," which is told using "stream of consciousness," is a modernist anti-Bildungsroman in which the reader sees excellent examples of experimentation with time shifting, complex allusions, multiple narrative voices, and inter-subjectivity. The author points out that, in the" Time Passes" section, human beings become secondary, while the novel shifts from its focus on psychology to chronology by contrasting its characters with the characters in the first section, by demonstrating the cruel effects of time on the Ramsey's house and on the people who spent time there in the first section of the novel, and by miniaturizing the historical time for Europe during and after World War I. The paper relates that the material objects used in the second part are reminders of the elegant Victorian life shown in the first half of the novel; and, in the second section, the reader sees how these objects can't save the people from the forces of nature and the outside world. Instead, the reader is given the idea that only outside forces can affect the social fabric of society, rather than the philosophies of the men, as in the first section.

From the Paper
"The story is told in three sections. The first section, "The Window," takes up half the book and introduces us to the many characters and complex relationships within the Ramsey's summer house. Each character's interior thoughts are shown, as well as the other character's reactions and influences upon them. As the day comes to an end, we are left content as Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey manage to put their differences behind them and give the other what they needed in order to be at peace within their relationship. However, the second section, "Time Passes," takes a very different approach. The omniscient narrator tells of the decay of the house over the years and of the deaths of Mrs. Ramsey, Prue and Andrew. The house is occupied by darkness, wind and rain, as opposed to the people whose relationships and lives we read about in the first section. The third section, "The Lighthouse," takes place back at the summer house ten years after the first section."

Tags:anti-bildungsroman, consciousness, experimentation, chronology, ww1

Abstract
This essay seeks to decide whether the character of Emma is a 'monster' or victim of circumstances. It looks closely at Emma's moral progress, mapping out key events in the novel that help her to develop. It also discusses the "bildungsroman" genre and how 'Emma' is novel which partly conforms to that genre. It refers closely to the text and quotes both parts of text and outside sources. It comes to a very firm conclusion.

From the Paper
"She is a refreshing change from the usual 'whiter than white' heroines that are portrayed in most novels, and instead is a very lifelike character. The other characters in the novel are more like caricatures, Emma is the only 'real' character in the book with the potential for development, and that is why we like her. The reader has the privileged view of observer so we are able to see the mistakes she makes and laugh at her mischievous plots. It is useful to compare Emma to the character of Mrs Elton."

Tags:analysis, bildungsroman, character, english, heroine, literature, moral, novel, progress, spiritual, emma, knightly