After reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Mr. Scerra’s Literature and Composition classes designed tests with two sets of answers. The first answers were those of a perfect student. The second were written by Holden’s great-grandson Bolton Caulfield. Despite the generation gap, Bolton has the same attitude, speech patterns, and approach to education that his great-grandfather had; he would take the test on the same way Holden might. The following is a passage from Bolton’s test:
In 2-3 paragraphs, use the following passage to determine whether or not this story is a successful bildungsroman. Make sure to have a clear thesis and use specific evidence to make your point. 35 points.
- “We kept getting closer and closer to the carousel and you could start to hear that nutty music it always plays… It played that same song about fifty years ago when I was a little kid. That’s one nice thing about carousels, they always play the same songs… Then what she did–it damn near killed me–she reached in my coat pocket and took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head… I stuck around on the bench for quite a while. I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way; but I got soaked anyway. I didn’t care, though. I felt so damn happy all of sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could’ve been there”(233).
Bildungsromans are stories of character growth, specifically about kids learning to become adults. When researching this term, I found that too many stories were listed as “classic bildungsromans,” when really they’re novels written by old rich authors that get famous off of phony stories that make their audiences happy. If you saw that list you wouldn’t think it’s very fair. And it’s not. This passage, along with any other story touted as a bildungsroman, does not show any true growth in character.
In Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden doesn’t improve. He starts off okay and everything. Like, you actually expect him to be an alright guy but he’s hopeless. He takes too many taxis, smokes too many cigarettes, and old Holden himself doesn’t even get what’s wrong with him. It’s messed up. The worst part is, he acts like he deserves to feel better. When you act like that and that kind of person is who you choose to be, you deserve exactly what you get. Until Holden makes himself better, he won’t feel any better. That’s what he’s too stupid to realize. That’s why this story is a failed bildungsroman. Holden’s too dumb to get better.
Bildungsromans are never successful though, even though the phony ones try really hard to be. It’s impossible to write an honest book that is also a bildungsroman. You either write a true story with what actually happened or you write a fake story about fake change in fake characters. Like in last year’s English class, we had to read this book To Kill a Mockingbird. And it was actually pretty good in the beginning, to tell you the truth, except in the second half when it got all phony. Anyway the main character was this kid Scout and she was alright but by the end she acted like she was so different, just for having lived a little and listened to her dad some. There was a girl in our class named Elle and she thought that was so great but I told her that’s not how change happens. Scout didn’t even do anything, just pretended she did to feel better about herself. It’s not fair when people fake that kind of stuff. Elle didn’t get it though. She thought To Kill a Mockingbird was a perfect bildungsroman. But I’m telling you, those don’t exist. Everyone has a true self. You can’t just change who you are. Holden is stupid and stubborn and he thinks he deserves to get anything else other than what he has. He’s wrong. He is who he is and he can never change that. Any story that seems like bildungsroman is phony because no realistic character ever deviates from their true, underlying self and that self is incapable of change.