Bildungsroman- Representative works( Joyce, Bronte, D.H.Lawrence, Twain, Dickens)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884 in England and
Canada and in the United States a few months later, in 1885. Like the Bildungsroman hero,
Huck leaves home to find an independent life, has a surrogate father in Jim, is in conflict with
his society, and reaches maturity when he repents his treatment of Jim and puts fairness
and friendship over expected behavior. Though considered by some to be a masterpiece
of American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn initially scandalized reviewers
and parents who thought it would corrupt young children with its depiction of a hero who lies,
steals, and uses coarse language. In the last half of the twentieth century, the condemnation of
the book continued on the grounds that its portrayal of Jim and use of the word ‘‘nigger’’ are
racist. While some justify the book as a documentation of the racial notions prevalent at the
time of its writing, the novel continues to appear on some lists of books banned in schools across
the United States.

Great Expectations
Great Expectations, published serially in 1860 and 1861 by Charles Dickens, follows the tradition
of the Bildungsroman. The young protagonist, Pip, leaves his rural home to become a
gentleman and win the girl of his dreams. While most Bildungsroman heroes have to make their
own way, Pip has a mysterious benefactor who provides the wealth that Pip thinks will make
him happy. However, in the course of finding his true values, Pip comes to realizes that happiness
comes not from money but from the appreciation of good friends, regardless of their social
status, and from personal integrity. This novel has become an all-time classic that is still
required reading in many high school curricula.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte¨ ’s Jane Eyre, published in 1847, is one of the first Bildungsromans with a female
protagonist. In this Victorian English novel, the female hero is constrained by social expectations
determined by gender-specific beliefs. At age ten, Jane is sent to residential school where she
acquires skills she later uses as a governess and a village schoolteacher. In its use of natural
elements and the supernatural, the novel is both romantic and Gothic. Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman
in that it traces Jane’s development     
from a dependent child to a mature and independent woman. The novel dramatizes the love
affair between Jane and Edward Rochester, who is married at the time they meet. Rochester keeps
his insane wife sequestered in his estate, and after she dies, he and Jane marry. Charlotte Bronte¨
was attracted to the married headmaster of the school in Brussels where she went to study
French and to teach in 1842–1843. This unhappy experience, along with the author’s memories of early school years at Cowan’s Bridge, contributed autobiographical elements to Jane Eyre, her first published work of fiction, which was an immediate success.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce’s masterpiece is Ulysses, but his autobiographical Bildungsroman is A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916. When Joyce’s hero Stephen Dedalus
grows up, he says farewell to his home country and to his family and religion as well. The Norton
Anthology of English Literature describes this
novel as portraying ‘‘the parallel movement toward art and toward exile.’’ This novel of
rebellion insists that the artist is an outcast and that his alienation is a necessary component of
his being creative.
Sons and Lovers
Another autobiographical Bildungsroman, Sons and Lovers was D. H. Lawrence’s third and most
notable novel. Published in 1913, it is the coming-of- age story of PaulMorel, the son of a coal miner
father and a controlling and ambitious mother who gives up on finding any fulfillment in her
marriage. She turns her possessive attention to her children, especially Paul. The resulting struggle
for sexual power and individual identity causes Paul difficulties in finding his professional
place and establishing a healthy relationship with a woman his own age. This novel dramatizes
some of the psychological points Freud explored under the label Oedipus complex.

Bildungsroman- Representative authors

Charlotte Bronte¨ (1816–1855)
Charlotte Bronte¨ was born in Yorkshire, England, on April 21, 1816, the third of six children.
Her two older sisters died in childhood, and Bronte¨ became very close to her remaining younger siblings, brother Branwell and sisters Emily and Anne. In 1846, Bronte¨ and her sisters
published a collection of poetry under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, and
although the collection was not well received by critics and readers, the three women continued
to write. By 1849, Bronte¨ had lost her three beloved siblings—Branwell from complications
of heavy drinking, and Emily and Anne to tuberculosis. Her writing career, however, was taking
off with the success of Jane Eyre (1847), an excellent example of the female Bildungsroman.
She married Arthur Bell Nichols, her father’s curate, in June 1854 and died less than a year
later, on March 31, 1855, either from tuberculosis or from complications caused by pregnancy.
Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
One of the greatest British writers of all time, Charles Dickens was a Victorian novelist who
chose the Bildungsroman form for at least two of his most famous works: David Copperfield
(1849–1850) and Great Expectations (1860– 1861). Born in Portsmouth, England, on February
7, 1812, Dickens grew up in London. His father was a navy clerk who went to debtors’
prison when Dickens was twelve. Forced to go to work in a shoe dye factory, Dickens lived
alone in fear and shame. These feelings led to the creation of his many orphan characters and
his sympathy for the plight of the working class that made him the first great urban novelist.
Although he was able to return to school and eventually clerked in a law firm, Dickens found
his first success as a journalist and comic writer of the Pickwick Papers (1836–1837). However,
his deep social concerns found expression in a rich intensity and variety in his later works. By
the time of his death from a paralytic stroke at age 58 on June 9, 1870, Dickens had written
many novels, including A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities.
James Joyce (1882–1941)
As a poet and novelist, James Joyce brought marked change to modern literature. Born in Dublin, Ireland, on February 2, 1882, Joyce moved frequently as a child because of his
father’s drinking and financial difficulties. Joyce’s classic Ku¨ nstlerroman (novel of an artist’s
development), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, portrays a hero who is a character blend of
Joyce and his father. Despite the Joyce family situation, the novelist received a good education
at a Jesuit school. But like his hero in A Portrait, Joyce later rejected religion, family, and his
home country, living most of his life on the European continent. However, he wrote almost exclusively
about Dublin. Joyce felt that being an artist required exile to protect oneself from sentimental
involvements and that he could not write about Dublin with integrity and objectivity
unless he went away. A Portrait established the modern concept of the artist as a bohemian who
rejects middle-class values. It also set the example for a number of modern Irish Bildungsromans
in which heroes achieve their quest when they come to believe that alienation from society,
not finding one’s place in the social order, is the mark of maturity. Joyce died in Zurich on
January 13, 1941, when he was only 59fifty-nine years old, but his innovations in literary organization
and style, particularly his use of stream of consciousness technique, secured his unique
place in the development of the novel.
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
Mark Twain is known as one of America’s leading realists, native humorists, and local colorists.
He was a master in the use of folklore, psychological realism, and dialects. Born Samuel
Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, he died of heart disease in
the city he had long made his home, Hartford, Connecticut, on April 21, 1910. Twain produced
not one but several classics, including what some believe to be the greatest American novel, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), a picaresque and satirical Bildungsroman. Probably
more than any other writer, Mark Twain provided a uniquely American, and usually comic,
portrayal of the Bildungsroman hero. Sadly, Twain’s satire became bitter as his personal tragedies
and financial reverses led to the disillusionment and depression that cloud his later writings.