In his 1987 study The Way of the World, literary scholar Franco Moretti says that the Bildungsroman "stands out as the most obvious of the (few) points of reference available in this irregular expanse which we call the 'novel'". Indeed, although the reader may not be familiar with the term itself, coined by the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, the genre's common motifs of education, growth and training are widely recognized as fundamental elements of the Western romantic tradition. The late 19th and early 20th centuries in particular saw a keen interest in life stories, notably Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (1861) and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), two novels that chronicle a process of self-discovery through which the protagonist achieves a deeper understanding of life through epiphanies and a gradual transition from childhood to maturity. However, while it is generally accepted that these texts fall within the tradition of the Bildungsroman, it is necessary to consider the contradictions and inconsistencies within the two novels, including the seemingly incongruous way in which the moral and intellectual development of the protagonists is accompanied by a curious loss of meaning. freedom and financial autonomy. Furthermore, the semi-autobiographical nature of these texts raises problematic questions related to the novel's conclusion, with the moral journeys of the two protagonists ending ambiguously. Throughout both narratives, then, the reader's expectations are continually confounded, casting doubt on the assumption that Dickens and Joyce produced clear narratives of advancement and progress. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned'?Get an Original EssayWith a deft and surprisingly progressive focus on the child's sensibilities, the opening chapters of Dickens's Great Expectations firmly establish identity by the young Philip Pirrip. and describe the social and emotional constraints placed on the protagonist due to his struggle with childhood adversity, a main characteristic of the Bildungsroman form. Orphaned at a young age and raised "by hand" by his overbearing sister, Pip harbors a considerable degree of resentment, but is unfortunately unable to improve himself due to his disadvantaged start to life. Indeed, after being mocked for his crude clothing and manners by the beautiful Estella at Satis House, Pip says to himself: “In myself I had maintained, since my childhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the moment I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was being unfair to me” [63]. Dickens augments this inner struggle by imbuing his text with a distinctly Gothic quality, and Pip's surroundings are continually shrouded in darkness – "Once more the mists rose as I walked away"[285]. – thus reflecting the confusion and vulnerability of the protagonist in the face of an uncertain future. When Pip is driven to London by the expectations of the world, it therefore appears that the foundations have been laid for a gradual quest for personal fulfillment and upward mobility, and the reader subsequently expects a story of personal development from rags to riches. conforms to the conventions of the 19th century Bildungsroman. Written more than fifty years after the publication of Dickens's text, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man expands on the tradition of the Bildungsroman using innovative stream-of-consciousness storytelling, but theprotagonist emerges from equally poor beginnings in a provincial Irish town. The intellectual and emotional challenges Dickens's Pip faces are echoed in the early chapters by young Stephen's sense of bewilderment at the world, with Joyce depicting a similar conflict between generations - perpetuated by a father who is an embarrassing figure of laziness and of ineptitude – as the source of the child's resentment: "He was angry with himself because he was young and prey to stupid and restless impulses, angry also at the change of fortune which was reshaping the world around him in a vision of misery and insincerity”[50]. Indeed, Stephen's struggle against isolation reaches its climax as he accompanies his unlucky father to Cork, where he feels the need to reassure himself by repeating: "I am Stephen Dedalus" [70], thus emphasizing his search continuation of a concrete identity. The protagonist's estrangement from his father parallels his lack of faith in the values ​​of his home, and Stephen must therefore seek an alternative vocation and creed. From the first chapters, Joyce therefore seems to prepare his readers for a formative novelistic journey of emancipation, thus setting in motion the developmental structure of the Bildungsroman. On the surface, the journey from the province to the metropolis, undertaken by both Pip and Stephen, signals a path to success and self-reliance. However, these notions of social and professional advancement are problematized by the palpable decline in freedom experienced by the characters as a direct consequence of their moral evolution. For example, Great Expectations depicts Pip's fall into an attitude of carelessness and snobbery which ultimately results in a religious paradox: to be purified, he must be defiled, and subsequently lose everything he owns. As a result, Pip's fortune is taken from him and the protagonist is forced to return to a state of childish helplessness. Invoking the biblical parable of the prodigal son, Dickens strips Pip of his wealth and well-being, ensuring that he must once again be fed by the kindly blacksmith Joe. This calamitous turn of events reveals the contradiction at the heart of the novel: although Pip has achieved emotional maturity, he has lost crucial elements of his adult identity, his financial misery symbolizing his loss of freedom and independence. Similar incongruities can be found in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where Stephen continually struggles with feelings of isolation and entrapment, even at crucial moments in his personal development. As a schoolboy in Clongowes, for example, he spoke out against injustice and reported to the school prefect after being treated unfairly. For the first time, Stephen is held in high esteem and treated as a hero by his peers, but he is uncomfortable with the situation and feels visibly "caged" by the adulation of his peers. classmates: “They made their locked prisoner into a cradle. hands and hoisted him among them and carried him until he struggled to free himself”[44]. Even at this early point in the novel, Stephen's developing mind associates heroism and success with constraint, foreshadowing the continued feelings of confinement he encounters as he reaches adulthood. This theme persists throughout the story, and despite the evolution of his artistic consciousness, Stephen remains distant from others, as illustrated by his unease among his classmates: "Stephen's heart slowly began to bend and wither with fear like a withered flower. » [82]. Obviously, the intellectual development of the protagonist is not analogous to a process of self-contentment, and Stephen, despite his growing awareness as an artist, remains dissatisfied.Furthermore, several critics have highlighted the problematic issue of novelistic closure in the Bildungsroman, emphasizing the various difficulties of convincingly concluding a semi-autobiographical life story. The ending of Great Expectations, in particular, is a point of contention for many readers and could be seen as upending the notion of life stories as congruent narratives of development and progress. After initially ending his protagonist's story in a decidedly unromantic manner, Dickens was asked to write an alternative conclusion, which sees the adult Pip reunited with his first love, Estella: "I took her hand in mine and we came out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had long since risen when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were now rising, and in all the vast expanse of quiet light which they showed me, I saw the shadow of a person who would not part with her. " [482] This somewhat anticlimactic conclusion undermines the moral journey undertaken by Pip, and the re-emergence of Estella (and the cynical opulence she represents) in the protagonist's life could be seen as a mockery of the process of redemption of Pip. As a semi-autobiographical account of Dickens's own life, the uncertain ending of Great Expectations therefore illustrates the difficulties associated with merging fiction and autobiography, as the tensions between the novelistic elements and the intrusions of the real experience are difficult to reconcile. Dickens fails to definitively finish the text and, as a result, Pip cannot fully escape the shackles of his troubled childhood. Therefore, rather than being a story of formation and development, Great Expectations might instead be seen as a story about novelistic expectations, where readers' anticipations are raised and then challenged. A similarly ambiguous conclusion is found in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and despite Stephen's formative decision to leave Ireland, the author makes no attempt to gloss over the incompleteness of the artist's development. Indeed, Stephen's personal deficiencies are highlighted even in the final chapter, where the protagonist often speaks erratically, "like an individual throwing a handful of peas into the air" [195]. Like Dickens, Joyce is constrained by the semi-autobiographical nature of the text, and the novel's inconclusive ending exposes Stephen's profound shortcomings. Indeed, several critics have pointed out undesirable elements of Stephen's character, such as his lack of humor, with Hugh Kenner asserting that the reader's first instinct when confronted with Stephen's final edition is to laugh: "we don't We must not accept Stephen's fashion for "freedom" as the "message" of the book. The tension between the protagonist's intellectual development and the absence of a full, harmonious personality therefore undermines the idea that Stephen's life story is a true story of development and personal improvement. Furthermore, throughout the two novels, the division between good and evil, reality and falsehood, becomes increasingly blurred, leading to what Moretti calls "a total paralysis of judgment." While Pip initially perceives the world in fairly binary terms, his experiences in London, coupled with his later encounter with his unlikely benefactor, Magwich, make him realize that he has behaved more reprehensibly than a convicted criminal: “I saw in him only a much better man than I had seen in Joe”[446]. In the same vein, Stephen Dedalus repeatedly confuses fiction and reality, escaping... by imagining himself as the hero of.