In the following essay, Kennedy examines how Wolfe's literary style in Look Homeward, Angel brings a richness and variety that elevates the story and its characters to a higher level.

The German term, Bildungsroman, which can best be translated as "novel of development" or "novel of growth" has never, to my knowledge, been adequately defined or characterized as a subcategory of the novel. We recognize in the term itself the core of its meaning. It refers to a novel which has as its subject the story of a young man or young woman who goes through the struggles of growing up and in the end reaches maturity, a point at which he has sufficient understanding of life that he can bring his career somewhat under control, free from the mistakes of the past. This kind of novel has a very strong appeal for readers because the experience...