An Analysis of the Nineteenth- century Bildungsroman Engage with Ideas of ‘Self-help’ or ‘Self- culture’

Abstract

According to Samuel Smiles mentioned in his classic work Self-Help:With illustrations of character and conduct, ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves.’ This quotation seems to clearly explain what self-help is. Smiles also interpreted it further, ‘The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength.’ This quotation recalls the title’s question I will explore in this essay that means self-help as a driving force for personal growth is the true source of a nation’s strength and prosperity. Therefore, when it comes to the connection between the ideas of ‘self-help’ or ‘self-culture’ and the nineteenth-century Bildungsroman, I hope to use two literary works as well as Samuel Smiles’s classic literary work Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct to explore this issue. Then, I will divide the structure of this essay into four parts. The literary works that I have chosen are Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.