by Tyler Keevil
This paper will examine the work of several authors who have written in the Bildungsroman tradition, including S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders), Joyce Carol Oates (Foxfire), and JD Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye). It will discuss their sources of influence and inspiration, and demonstrate how personal experience helped them to create authentic fictional worlds. The paper will pay particular attention to the ideas, tropes, and motifs that are common to all these works. It will also seek to understand how those elements relate to the wider traditions of the genre. Additional emphasis will be given to the aspects of the Bildungsroman that crossover into what has been called ‘the antiestablishment novel.’ That is, themes of personal autonomy, rebellion, and the homogenization of culture and society. Works in which these themes feature prominently, such as Albert Camus’s The Outsider and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, will be examined in conjunction with those mentioned above. Through comparison and contrast, the paper will aim to draw parallels between these two traditions, and demonstrate their continued relevance to the modern literary landscape. In so doing, it will also touch on how the writing of all these authors has influenced the speaker’s own fiction.
Biography:
Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver, Canada. He first came to the UK in 1999 to study English at Lancaster University. Since then, he has received several awards for his writing and filmmaking. His work has been published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, including Interzone, New Welsh Review, On Spec, and Planet: The Welsh Internationalist. His main areas of academic interest are autobiographical writing and Canadian short fiction. Parthian Books published his first novel, Fireball, in 2010.
