Bildungsroman Analysis

Bildungsroman – The House on Mango Street The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a Bildungsroman (coming of age story) which follows the life of Esperanza Cordero, a Latino girl living in the Hispanic area of Chicago. It explores her experiences in the neighbourhood and her interaction with her neighbours both of which shape her aspirations and outlook on life. This novel is an example of Bildungsroman, a coming of age novel that follows the development of the protagonist till the point where the character understands his or her role in society. Very often, it deals with the formative years of the character and their psychological and moral development through their responsiveness to the circumstances around them. The German word Bildungsroman means a ‘novel of formation’ or ‘novel of growth’. The term was first used by philologist Karl Morgenstern in the 1820s and later used and made popular by Wilhelm Dilthey in 1870. There are different types of Bildungsroman like Künstlerroman which deals with the development of an artist, Erziehungsroman which is

His experiences with them help him overcome the psychological damage due to the burden of his repressed memories of sexual abuse at the hands of his aunt as he decides to “participate” in life and is finally at peace with life. Another example of Bildungsroman is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let me go where the characters Tommy, Kathy and Ruth are clones who were created to serve as organ donors. Through the novel each of them develops and discovers their true self and the novel ends with Ruth and Tommy ‘completing’ (dying after donating as many organs as they can while alive) and Kathy (who serves as a carer to the donors) possibly coming to terms with a similar fate in the near