American Son: a Bildungsroman

When I read the Victorian Web website’s definition for Bildungsroman one thing in particular caught my eye. When I read American Son, I initially thought it was not a coming of age story because at the end Gabe doesn’t take the opportunity that Ika and his Aunt Jessica tried to provide him with Westward. But then I saw that part of the definition for a Bildungsroman included that “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.” The reason I think this is applicable to American Son is because at the beginning of the story Gabe is quiet and tends to avoid conflict. Gabe is initially very reserved tends to avoid conflicts with people, and he is obviously very conflicted over his identity in America. But by the end of the novel he helps Tomas to beat up Ben Feinstein as payback for Ben’s mom chewing Ika out. I think this is because that by the end of the novel he wants to stand up for his mother, he no longer wants to keep getting stepped on because he is a Filipino immigrant, and this is his way of doing it.

I think another important reason you could consider this novel a Bildungsroman is because the narrator, Gabe, is forced to journey away from his home and begin the growth process. Part of the definition of a Bildungsroman is that the hero must have “some form of loss or discontent must jar them at an early stage away from the home or family setting.” The reason Gabe leaves his home is because he is embarrassed of his mother and upset with his brother. He runs away to California because he cannot deal with the situation, and he is violently jarred back to reality with what happens in Oregon. He begins to realize there, I think, that he shouldn’t call his mother the maid and that he should stick up for who he is and where he comes from. This is shown in the end of the story when he first stands up for his mother when she is buying makeup and then later when he gets the “yoga mom” back.