Bildungsroman?

As our class finished Emma and I looked back over my annotations I wanted to look at idea of the novel being considered a bildungsroman more closely. While reading Emma I went back and forth on whether or not I believed it was in fact a bildungsroman novel. Prior to reading this novel my exposure to Bildungsroman novels consisted of Great Expectations and Jane Eyre. When I tried to compare all of these novels I found both similarities and differences. What I found to be true is that while yes they are all coming of age novels I found Emma to be different. The definition of Bildungsroman we were given at the beginning of this novel is as follows:

1. A Bildungsroman is, most generally, the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and a "search for meaningful existence within society."

2. To spur the hero or heroine on to their journey, some form of loss or discontent must jar them at an early stage away from the home or family setting.

3. The process of maturity is long, arduous, and gradual, consisting of repeated clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order.

4. Eventually, the spirit and values of the social order become manifest in the protagonist, who is then accommodated into society. The novel ends with an assessment by the protagonist of himself and his new place in that society.

   After carefully considering the definition I was given and carefully reading the novel itself I have decided that Emma is not in fact a bildungsroman. I feel that while through Emma’s journey she came to some serious points recognition and epiphanies of character she never grew from these realizations. She merely acknowledges the fact that they are there and that her character is flawed yet she doesn’t ever actually change or do anything in an attempt to fix these flaws. Inn the closing chapters of the novel the narrator says that, “With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody’s destiny.” (Austen 358). Even at the end of this novel Emma has still not learned her lesson and found her proper position in society, this shows that there is not a presence of growth therefore the novel is not a bildungsroman. If anything I believe that if anything Emma has regressed. The one thing she often prided herself on was her independence and in the end f the novel she forfeits that as well by marrying Mr. Knightley. Through out the novel there is a theme of independence vs. dependence and those who are independent seem to be superior. When Emma marries Mr. Knightley she forfeits her superiority which essentially defined her character and by doing this she giving up her individuality. She did not grow as a character but actually in a sense lost her character.