The protagonists’ initiatory experiences in the Canadian Bildungsroman, 1908-1971
Creators: name: Turner, Gordon Philip
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: This study examines several aspects of the 20th century Canadian Bildungsroman, most particularly the protagonists' initiatory experiences and their effect upon ultimate life-choices. The growing up novels being explored range across the entire period from Anne of Green Gables (1908) to Lives of Girls and Women (1971). The kind of novel analyzed is comparable in many ways to what the Germans call the Entwicklungsroman, the novel-of-development, which in English has come under the all-encompassing term, the Bildungsroman. Each novel investigated begins somewhere in the protagonist's childhood, passes into and through the troubled stage of adolescence, and concludes with some connection to adulthood. Three basic questions are being asked: 1. What are the specific features of the initiatory experiences of the growing individual? 2. How do the initiatory experiences affect the protagonist's choice of an adult role or future? 3. How do the initiatory experiences and decisions about adult roles translate into historical time periods in Canada? The historical course of the Canadian Bildungsroman is characterized by a variety of patterns. The basic pattern is the dialectic between connections and freedom, between what the society wants and what the individual desires. In many instances, these opposites fuse, but in more contemporary Canadian fiction, the rift is ever-widening between the poles. There are, of course, numerous in-between positions, variations in which protagonists achieve limited freedom while functioning as responsible social beings. In the Canadian Bildungsroman tradition, the particular patterns of behavior can be linked to specific time periods. The movement at the entry to adulthood in the novels of the early part of the century is toward imitation of the available adult roles as observed in parental, or equivalent, models. In the novels of growing up from the period 1908 to 1930, the protagonist accepts the established cultural values and a role for his future in line with society's terms. The novels of the period 1930 to 1947 are structured in much the same way. Though the protagonist occasionally questions social values, he ultimately adheres to them. An intermediary period in Canadian literature exists from 1947 on into the 1950's. During this period, protagonists in Bildungsromane are shown as being drawn in two directions. They want to leave the values of home and family for an imagined freedom and sense of scope in the larger world, but are forced by their very nature (as it has developed within the family) to remain inert. Not accepting the parents' way, which in these novels is society's way, these protagonists do not forge their own way either. Beginning in the late 1950's, Bildungsromane become more positive about the possibility of escape from the larger system to the sanctuary of individual choice and action. These protagonists search for a mode of being nearer to the needs of their own souls than that offered by their families and their communities. Influential factors that shape childhood values and determine adolescent choices are monitored throughout this study. The roles of parents and parental-substitutes, as well as the expectations of community, are closely scrutinized and placed alongside the nature of the hero's experiences with his peers and other important figures outside his home. The generally-contrasting value systems contribute to the protagonist's evaluation of what the adult world holds for him when he "comes of age." Initiatory experiences are explored to note whether the protagonist is confirmed as a full adult member within community or whether his orientation is thrown into disarray and causes him to seek new expressions of self. It is the task of the literary historian to illustrate where we as a culture have been and where we are headed. There is no better vehicle for this discovery than the Bildungsroman, in that it reveals a particular youth (representative of youth in general) becoming aware of the nuances of his culture as he grows. At any specific time in Canadian history, we can observe the forces the youth must assimilate, understand, or disregard in order to participate in society in his particular way.