Continuing the Tour of Story Structures around the World
Moral growth, not just coming-of-age stories: Bildungsroman as a structure
This is the second installment. Want to read the first? Click here.
A note to readers. I’m a huge manga and anime fan, particularly for My Hero Academia. The final chapter of the manga released this week, thus ending the manga. This article does contain spoilers for the My Hero Academia Epilogue, which I purposely looked up because I live off spoilers and we would not get an official English translation until next year. You have been warned.
I have returned with more story structures from around the world. Today we dive into the world of Bildungsroman, a German story structure based around moral and psychological growth of a protagonist. In fact, the structure name, bildungsroman, breaks down into the German word ‘bildung’ which means education and “roman” which means novel.
The whole idea is that these are stories about a person's growth from youth into adulthood, focusing on the character’s moral and psychological growth.
It sounds awfully generic. And many authors and readers/watchers of TV know many coming-of-age stories, so how is this different? They honestly sound like they could be used interchangeably, seeing as most coming-of-age stories focus on the moral and psychological growth of characters as well.
Well, technically, a bildungsroman is a subgenre of the coming-of-age story. Yes, a coming-of-age story deals with the same type of subjects, often focusing on a teen going into adulthood, first romantic relationships, or graduating middle or high school.
Specifically, a bildungsroman focuses on a naive person searching the world for an answer to a question. If it feels like it came folklore and tales, it did—from stories that were commonly talked about as a ‘dunce or youngest child going out into the world to find their wealth.’ The goal is maturity but conflict arises as the main character clashes with society. As the main character accepts societal values, they are also then accepted by their society as well.
Recent examples of Bildungsroman
Obviously, this structure is broad and can encompass many stories, many of which we may not even realize are within the bildungsroman genre.
As I looked at the few resources I could find online (most restated the same things over and over), I did find on Wikipedia a list of works from various centuries that are considered bildungsromans.
Some were not surprising once I thought about them. For example, Naruto. While I have not watched much of the show, I know that it follows Naruto’s growth as a ninja and hope to become the Hokage.
Building on that, I would very much think that My Hero Academia (to which I say congratulations to Kohei Horikoshi on completing My Hero Academia’s 10-year manga run! Spoilers, but I read what happened and love the end.)
My Hero Academia follows Izuku Midoriya on his quest to become the greatest hero. Midoriya very much learns a lot about morals through his trials and tribulations. Being a hero, doing what’s right, is not always following the rules. Take the first My Hero movie, Two Heroes, when Midoriya and All Might go to I-island. When villains attack, Midoriya and his classmates face rules telling them they cannot fight, but morally, citizens are in trouble, the heroes are captured, and they must do something, or many people will get hurt.
In a similar vein, I was surprised to see Harry Potter listed as a bildungsroman. Many writers see it as a classic example of hero or heroine’s journey (the themes and beats of each can be seen throughout the series), but until I read the article about bildungsroman on Wikipedia, I hadn’t thought about the fact that the overall series is very much Harry and his friends growing up but learning morals and some similar lessons to what Midoriya learns in My Hero Academia.
And I find it interesting that we see these highly popular stories as part of the bildungsroman story structure, but also well within other structures as well. My Hero Academia and Naruto are both shonen. They have elements of science fiction or fantasy. MHA is a superhero story, which is a subgenre of speculative fiction.
I bring this up, because the most classic examples of bildungsroman are novels like Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. Classic stories like this are probably more easily categorized as coming-of-age and bildungsroman, but more popular, mainstream stories now I think are a greater way to showcase to a larger audience what a story structure, like bildungsroman, is. I, even as a 42 year old, identify with reading My Hero Academia far more than with Jane Eyre (which I’ve never read). It’s fine as an example, but I find that for me, media I actually consume makes learning about a topic more interesting.
What I found fascinating was some of the other examples like Dune and Ender’s Game.
A little about structure
So, the big question then becomes, how is a bildungsroman story structured?
Well, it appears (in this awesome breakdown on Masterclass) that the story starts with a loss, generally in early years of the main character. There is a journey, inspired by their loss (gee, sounds a bit like the Hero’s Journey, huh?) and searching for the answer to a question and gain life experience. There is conflict and personal growth, many times due to mistakes they make and as they accept society’s standards, society also returns the gesture and accepts them as well. At the end, the main character has shown great maturity and psychological growth.
At the end of the structure portion of that Masterclass article, it’s fascinating to me that it states that you may see the main character giving back or helping someone on the same path.
Which (HUGE SPOILERS FOR MHA EPILOGUE)…
…sounds like a certain manga that may have ended recently that I mentioned. (Reaffirming my earlier stance, whew!)
Now that you have learned a bit about bildungsroman as a structure, leave a comment with your favorite story that fits within the structure!
Check out part 3 of this series here. »»Next