Bildungsroman In Catcher In The Rye

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The Power of Fear A bildungsroman is a type of novel that demonstrates, what some would say is, the biggest and most difficult change in a person’s life. A bildungsroman exemplifies the time in which an individual discovers his or her identity, and it is a change that can be slow or quick, at home or away, but is never the same as someone else’s. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, and Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid, are two examples of bildungsromans, but just as two lives are never the same these two books are far from the same story. The main characters, Holden and Lucy respectively, are very different people and this leads to two very different struggles to discover their identities. Catcher in the Rye and Lucy are both coming of age novels in which both characters experience rapid change, but their childhood experiences and relationships with…show more content…
Lucy and Holden had completely different childhoods which lead to their different experiences during their respective novels. Lucy grew up on a small island in the Caribbean, and never left it in her whole life, before she turned 19. Lucy spent her whole life on this island but she explains she had “never set foot on three-quarters of it” (134) exemplifying the regularity and pattern in her life, at least in location. Lucy grew up around all the same people on a small 8 mile wide island. She had never been anywhere even slightly cold before she came to Mariah and Lewis so the first thing she says when she comes is “The sun was shining but the air was cold” (5) further illustrating her static life. This lack of change in environment is one of the triggers for
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