AP ENGLISH LITERATURE AND
COMPOSITION
The Bildungsroman
Independent Novel Project
For this project you will complete the following:
1. Major Works Data Sheet – to be competed for homework
2. Literary analysis responses – individually and in groups
during class
These together will account for one test grade – due
Thursday, March 26
Final assessment on novel – timed writing on Thursday,
March 26
Bildungsroman
 A bildungsroman is a novel that traces the
psychological and moral development and
maturation of the main character or characters.
 Sometimes also referred to as a ‘coming of age’
story.
 Usually, this presentation pertains to the
protagonist. It can also, however, show the
inverse development of the antagonist.
Plot of Bildungsroman
1) Emotional
loss for youth
4) Youth learns,
matures
2) Youth leaves
home on “journey”
Society accepts
him/her.
3) Encounters
many conflicts
External - man
vs. society
5) Young adult accepts
values of society.
Internal - man
vs. himself
6) Adult returns home
with new knowledge to
benefit society.
Construction of the Bildungsroman
 The writer creates situations that allow the reader
to see the young protagonist grow and experience
struggles in this journey to adulthood through
formal education, personal experience and
various kinds of relationship.
 The writer often shows the protagonist struggling
with the transition between the innocence of
childhood and the responsibility that comes with
adulthood.
 Think: how might these struggles relate to the
title of the novel?
Examples of the Bildungsroman
 Charles Dickens's Great Expectations
 Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
 James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man
 J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
 S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders
 Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird