Bildungsroman Essays (Examples)

Against Marx: Huck Finn Is About a Boy -- And Is Not a Coming-of-Age Novel

The character of Huck Finn is based upon the idea of the crucial inversion, which Twain develops at every instance of the novel. For example, in the beginning of the novel, Huck is meant to be civilized by Miss Watson -- but instead he is climbing out the window to play at being pirates with Tom. When Pap arrives, Huck is supposed to hand over the money that he won from the previous book -- but money does not mean anything to Huck, so it is in the hands off the Judge, who will not give to Pap. When Huck runs away from Pap, he teams up with Jim, the runaway slave -- and instead of turning Jim in to the authorities, he helps to hide him (even though there are moments of a "crisis"…

Huckleberry Finn

Suspense: Find examples of suspense in chapter 24-30. What do these events cause a reader to feel anxious for Huck? Is he ever in real danger?

Suspense is maintained throughout the Wilks scam by wondering whether the increasing inventions of the King and the Duke will still enable them to maintain their con game, and then whether the mounting threat of mob violence will claim their lives, or even possibly Huck's. If there is a moment when Huck may face real danger, it is when the mob forms to demand justice.

As a reader, do you feel anxious for the Duke or the king? Why or why not?

The Duke's and king's situation in these chapters is precarious. The Wilks scam seems unlikely to pan out and brings out the worst in them both -- Huck says their behavior makes him "ashamed of the human race." But the…

A description of the entrance of Elmer Stark, father of Eddy and Tony, into the world of the story makes both the masculine and the feminine exotic, other, and unknowable, while at the same time igniting tensions and passions -- outright lust, in fact -- between them in a fetishization of the other. Nettie, the Stark matriarch, is described watching this stranger wash, "his naked shoulders, the gleam of his skin, and the lines of charred bronze where the sun had burned his neck and wrists, the faint red-gold of the hairs that edged from under his belt at his waist" (Lane, p. 144). This description makes it clear that Elmer is not being viewed as a human, but as an other, just as Nettie is creating her own distance and just as distances were created with the native peoples through such objectification. ith such beginnings as these, it is…

Telemakhos development into manhood with the maturing of a young male character portrayed in a film

The Odyssey is recognized as the epitome of epics in literature and mythology by which all other epics are judged. Odysseus' journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan war takes many twists and turns and has all of the elements of an action-packed and epic adventure. However, there is another story developing parallel to that of Odysseus and his crew. ack home in Ithaca, Odysseus has left behind a wife, son, and kingdom that suffer in his absence. Telemakhos has a journey of his own while his father travels the world. "The first four books of the Odyssey are often referred to as the 'Telemachiad, or the song of Telemechus as they focus on the difficulties of a young hero coming of age in a hostile environment." (Lucas) In much the same way that…

Kim

Fathering Kim

The concept of a "coming of age" novel or a Bildungsroman is fairly well established, typically exploring the loss of innocence and the growing awareness -- both of the self and of the external world -- of the protagonist of the story, typically an adolescent male. There are many variations on this overall idea of a coming of age novel, of course, with characters and plots the cover a wide variety of different backgrounds, settings, and intentions, and with the overall impact and meaning of these novels also highly varied. Great Expectations and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two examples of Bildungsroman, in certain ways, yet are very different stories told in very different styles, and with very different commentaries on society. Interestingly, despite the major differences in these tales, both of the protagonists in each of these novels is also without a true father in…

Her society tells her she needs one, and when Milkman enters her life, she invests her entire personality in him. When he leaves her, Hagar lacks the self she needs to survive. Pathetically, she tries to create a self that Milkman will want by buying makeup and clothes, turning her beautiful African hair a horrible orange (Milkman has been dating light-skinned redheads), and generally abasing herself.

Morrison certainly deviates from a sterotypical feminist perspective when she criticizes Hagar's possessiveness as well as Milkman's cruelty. When Hagar and uth argue over Milkman, Pilate points out that a man is not a house to be owned. Finally, when Hagar is trying to kill Milkman (not able to possess him, she does not know what else to do), Guitar tells her how wrong she is to base her value on the possession of a man. How can Milkman love her if she is…

Multi-Ethnic Literature

The focus of this work is to examine multi-ethnic literature and focus on treating humans like farm animals that can be manipulated for various purposes. Multi-Ethnic literature offers a glimpse into the lives of the various writers of this literature and into the lives of various ethnic groups and the way that they view life and society and their experiences. Examined in this study are various writers including Tupac Shakar, Dorothy West, Petry, and others.

A Rose Grows From Concrete

One might be surprised to learn that Tupac Shakar was the writer of many sensitive poems. Upon his death in 1996, Tupac's mother released a collection of poems entitled 'A Rose Grows From Concrete', which includes various love poems among the 72 poems in the collection. Tupac writes:

Things that make hearts break.

Pretty smiles

Deceiving laughs

And people who dream with their eyes open

Lonely children

Unanswered…

The fact that she gives up on the name that recalls her Jewish origins is considered to be a proof of her own anti-Semitism. It is very obvious that it is right from within the family that she receives the greatest pressure. This is the only clear act which she makes in order to better define her identity. She declares that she does not feel Jewish and this is how she motivates her act. This was also the easiest if not the only choice that she could do. Otherwise the colour of her skin remained what it was, constantly reminding her and everyone else about her mixed origins.

The idea of constant passage is a central theme to the book under analysis. The fact that the character detaches herself from her body has a very deep significance. It is generally declared that no type of social construct can deeply impact…

I was stricken at the site of gender representation at the management level in this country, for example.

Jane Eyre and characters like her made me develop a sense of reality when it came to gender roles that was partly distorted. I was of course inclined to think that I had every right to get the same opportunities as my male counterparts and generally I did in my country. but, the trust I had developed in my male coworkers and those I came in contact with was a little far stretched because of characters like Jane. The physical part of a relationship between a man and a woman was not treated in detail because the era did not allow such extravagancy, but the sexual aspects that were left unsaid or that were just alluded to were impossible to understand for a child and hard to explain later for a young…

As for the major dilemma (China vs. President of the U.S. Operations), the protagonist should first check if the two alternatives are available to him. In other words, he should talk to the CEO and ask how eligible he is for the vacant position in USA. If Pierre asserts that there is a high probability for him to be elected, then Michael will have a family council and ask for his wife and children's opinions, which weigh significantly in his decision. If he is still torn between the two alternatives or has a more pronounced appetite for the President of the U.S. operations position, then he can resort to the following tactic. He could tell Pierre that he is highly interested in the vacancy and that he would like to postpone his answer to the China opportunity until the "winner" of the elections is announced. However, going to China represents…

Diaz's Examination Of Culture: Clashes And Identities

Diaz's Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a combination of cultural experiences and influences that are as rich and imaginative as the stories the book contains. Within the main character, Oscar, lies the power to both transcend definition of culture and become victim or prey of a specific culture's stereotypes and norms. Oscar is an obese, alienated person within his own culture, but he is drawn out of his personal problems and violent existence within the Dominican dictatorship through his love of escapist literature and stories. Oscar even refers to himself as a "victim of fuku americanus," or the "Curse of the New World." (Diaz, 2007). This is an integral idea within the novel and helps to shape the cultural struggles that are contained within it.

Throughout this entire voyage through Oscar's life, author Diaz explores the mixture of cultures, languages, and ideas…

Individualization in America as Shown in Updike's "A&P"

John Updike's short story "A&P" has been the subject of much scholarly debate over the decades since it first appeared. On the surface a simple tale of youthful lust and rebelliousness, there have been many attempts to read deeper meaning into the story and to assign certain symbolic importance to the adolescent protagonist and other elements of the story. Through an examination of previous criticism on the work and a close reading of the story itself, it will be shown that the character Sammy in Updike's "A&P" symbolizes the emerging individualization of America's youth and it's clash with established norms in post-II society.

Sammy is a nineteen-year-old clerk at the A&P grocery store in a town "five miles from the beachand the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something" to cover their beach attire in the more modest society…

Man ho Shot Liberty Valance and the Brilliance of John Ford

John Ford's The Man ho Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a classic western with a few film noir elements included, is elegiac in the sense that its narrative strategy is that of eulogistic remembrance by now-Senator Ransom Stoddard, of horse rancher Tom Doniphan, who once saved Stoddard's life and changed it much for the better, and who was the real man who shot Liberty Valance. According to Robert Horton, "This may be the saddest estern ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose" ("Editorial Reviews"). Upon Tom Doniphan's death in the small fictional town of Shinbone (state unknown) Ransom and Hallie Stoddard arrive back in town to pay their final respects to Doniphan who sacrificed so much of himself, and so much of his own future happiness,…

Charlotte's eb

An Analysis of ilbur's Maturation in Charlotte's eb

The journey of ilbur (the runt-sized pig) from childhood into adulthood is full of perils, twists and turns. hile ilbur's story encompasses the lives of several animals and a few humans, it is more than a collection of assorted characters gathered together in a children's tale: it is a kind of bildungsroman -- a coming-of-age novel in which a pig (ilbur) undergoes a maturation process thanks to some help from a few loving friends. This paper will show how ilbur matures into an adult despite some handicaps and a few very real threats along the way.

As Nancy Larrick points out, E.B. hite's Charlotte's eb contains a "startling note of realism" when it introduces the very first threat of ilbur's life: the ax (Larrick 67). The serious defect of ilbur's size (at least in the eyes of Fern's father) sheds…

No longer is the god of the sea, Poseidon, an active presence in the tale, as the myth of his parental lineage to Theseus is transformed into a rather credible connection based on faith and religious sentiment. In order to illustrate this shift of perception, Theseus's uncanny and intuitive prediction of earthquakes is correlated with Poseidon by metaphor: "The God is coming, I feel him in the ground" (enault 170).

It is in a similarly plausible and humane way that the other culturally relevant aspects of the tale are presented, except for the superstition exhibited in the episode of the athenean witch's curse on Theseus, as he contends that "the charm she put on me was very evil, and if you talk of such things you give them power" (enault 75). Indeed, Mary enault successfully humanized most of the legend's mythical elements, by making Theseus, for instance, earn the kingship…

Sexual Fantasy: Coming of Age in Modern America

Portnoy's Complaint and The Brief ondrous life of Oscar ao are two bildungsroman (coming of age stories) that suggest there are profound discrepancies between exterior and interior realities. Like The Bonfire of the Vanities, another classic chronicle of the tension between social personas and the dark underbelly of individual psychologies, these stories suggest that to be an American is to have a divided self. In all three novels, main characters project a moral, often a seemingly asexual surface, but beneath that social self, darker and more passionate desires seethe within. Each character has a sexual fantasy or obsession: in the case of Alexander Portnoy, it is gentile females, in the case of Sherman McCoy it is a lower-class woman, in the case of Oscar ao it is beautiful women he can never have because of his physical appearance.

The titular hero of…

Solitude Feminist Crit

The Power of the Feminine in Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his work One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) spins a tale of postcolonial Columbia that will likely forever be thought of as a classic work of fiction, brought to light during what many think of a serious high point in Latin American Literature. The work is translated to many languages and even today sells a great many copies. (King) The development of the tale is that of the founding of a city by a single couple and all the ways in which this couple and their various offspring relate to the world, from within the scope of their town. The many generational tale encompasses a century and begins with the development of a core relationship, that between Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife and cousin Ursula. This work will first…

David Mamet

From the perspective of pure plot, David Mamet's 1974 play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, is not exactly easy to summarize, although this difficulty is formally built in to the play, itself, which quite consciously rejects a standard narrative flow from one event to another for a cut-up collagistic style that rapidly jumps between scenes and events. Indeed, this sort of experimentation is hardly new in creative works, and was, in fact, a mainstay of modernist literature at the early part of the 20th century, but it can indeed still be jarring in the realm of theater, where one often tends to expect an emphasis on plot and narrative vision. Mamet's play, on the other hand, prefers to eschew these things in order to suggest something like the fractured nature of our own existences, and, rather than letting the plot hold the interest of the viewers, he realizes on…

Asian media, specifically anime and animated movies like "Spirited Away," impact Saudi youth?

Argument

Anime or what some may consider, Japanese animation, is one of the main aspects of Japanese media. It has reached millions of people worldwide and inspired fashion, movies, and even an entire city, Akihabara. Hayao Miyasaki's "Spirited Away" is what some consider one of his best works. The magic of this animated film has brought countless fans into the realm of anime and Japanese animation. ith its themes of connection, the spirit world, and memory, it has generated meaning and depth within its growing audience. The creator, Hayao Miyasaki, is a traditional artist, focusing on strong images and themes of love, good and evil, and childhood to portray his character and tell his stories. These stories have brought him and Japanese animation in general, increased success, with "Spirited Away" becoming the most popular Japanese animated film…

New Identity through Healing in Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun: A Feminist Critique

I'll Give You the Sun is a Michael L. Printz Award-winning young adult novel by Jandy Nelson that examines the complexities of coming of age, dealing with grief and loss, burgeoning sexuality, and healing. It gives a dual-gender perspective -- that of fraternal twins Noah and Jude, and from a feminist critique it offers an example of how the oppressions of patriarchal society are overturned by the subversion of the male status quo and the valorization of the oppressed (in this case, the valorization of the homosexual Noah and the female Jude). Throughout the narrative, the growing pains, experience of loss, and the concomitant healing process is given breadth through application of the feminist critique, which provides the framework for how Jude overcomes her initial negative sexual experience at a young age to grow into a…

Stranger Things is a television show on Netflix that recounts the story of a missing boy, a frantic mother, and three friends looking for an answer. The show is a pastiche of popular 80's movies and television shows that featured monsters like E.T. and telekinetic children like Charlie in Firestarter. While the show does not hit on anything original, it does manage to hit a nerve among fans and has swept the nation with its sweet whispers of nostalgia. The show perhaps invites people to reach for their own ideologies in life vicariously through the main characters. Althusser discusses ideologies in his piece, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" and Bell Hooks examines desire and resistance in "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance" that can point towards a better understanding of such a fast-growing cultural phenomenon.

Althusser defines ideologies from a traditional standpoint as 'world outlooks. However, Althusser admits they do…

Suddenly I receive a Titian to hang on my wall -- a Greek bas-relief to stick over my chimney-piece." (James in: Phelan-Cox, 2004)

Through the analogies of alph, the reader is able to view the manner in which "male pleasure in spectatorship with interconnected with Western aesthetics generally." (Phelan-Cox, 2004) it is the argument of Laura Mulvey that the film of Hollywood is structured around "the voyeurism and scopopophilia of the male gaze by denying the existence of other viewing positions." (Phelan-Cox, 2004) James veritably denied other ways to view through his description of the scene "by consciously omitting Isabel's own perception of herself in that setting or any objective description of the scene that might include observations about alph." (Phelan-Cox, 2004)

VII. Portrait and the Implications

The title of this story is even misleading as noted by Phelan-Cox the word 'portrait' "implies that the novel is to be a…

Nihilism and Idealism in "Our Lady of the Peace"

For any person of any ethnicity who verbalizes even a vague threat of suicide over a recalcitrant vending machine bag of greasy Fritos - and compares her plight with Tibetan monks lighting themselves on fire and Eskimos floating off to oblivion on icebergs - life surely is a dark and murky puzzle. Each day must be full of terrible episodes based purely upon ignorance and indifference. This Frito girl is nihilism in motion, nihilism personified. There is a boat-load of it wherever one looks in America these days, if, that is, one is looking and feeling and not just existing. Nihilism, according to Merriam-Webster Online, is "a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless"; and it is also defined as "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral…