Two versions of Bildungsromane: Jane Eyre and David Copperfield

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Duisburg-Essen, course: Charles Dickens, 20 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This essay deals with two well-known texts of the Victorian age, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, published in 1847 and Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1850). Both novels give an autobiographical insight into the first three decades of the protagonists' lives. Jane and David, the two first person narrators look back on their lives, giving very detailed descriptions of the experiences they have made at school, in their professional and their private life. This essay will show how Jane and David's development is presented in the novels and will examine in how far the texts can be classified as Bildungsromane. The second part of this paper gives a definition of the Bildungsroman and detects the roots of the genre. The third chapter deals with the development and education of Jane Eyre with a major focus on Jane's struggle with the oppressive patriarchal society and its representatives who try to manipulate her way towards maturity, self-definition and equality. The fourth chapter takes a look at David Copperfield's development and gives a close analysis of the main issues, class and sexuality that have a crucial impact on David's formation of self. The second last chapter then attempts to combine the analyses of the two novels on the basis of the definition of the Bildungsroman genre, which is given in the next part of the essay. Similarities and differences between the texts will be worked out by taking a close look at the central issues of both novels again.