The Coming of age in literature

A detailed Summary of The Coming of age in literature

A theme is being traced through the three stories of "Nights", "Sundiata", and "Gilgamesh". It is the coming of age of a child or man in a story. In all of these stories, a child or man who has to face many challenges is part of coming of age. In "Nights", the young man has to face a German refugee camp and has to basically face death or as close as you can come to it. In Sundiata, young Sundiata has to face many challenges in growing up, and in Gilgamesh, a man had to face a long strenuous journey in result of his coming of age. Therefore, it will be shown how each theme of coming of age relates in each story.

Sundiata is about a young man who is destined to be king but he cannot walk at the age of seven. As result of this misfortune Soassouma decides to take the throne and treats all the people badly. One-day Sundiata's mom asked Sassouma for some boabab leaves because her son could not get the leaves. Sassouma replied "I have a calabash full. Help yourself, you poor woman. As for me my son knew how to walk at the age of seven and it is he who went and picked these Boabab leaves. Take them since your son is unequal to mine." (Niane, 105). Although she gave her the leaves, she made

All of these stories contained the coming of age of men and boys, which is very important in life and literature. It is used to show maturity, and how an upbringing can and may effect your future actions and decisions. So, this technique used in "Sundiata", "Nights", and "Gilgamesh" was used to show how they grow and mature over time and situations.

In "Gilgamesh" a man named Gilgamesh who is half man and half god; he confronts many problems from the gods and from nature. In this story Gilgamesh is sent on a journey to find eternal youth plant. He has to overcome many enemies and forces of nature to complete his journey and come of age. For example, when he arrived at the young woman's house and she said "If you are that Gilgamesh who seized and killed the Bull of Heaven, who killed the watchman of the forest, who over threw Humbaba that lived in that forest, and killed those loins in the passes of the mountain, why are your cheeks so starved and why is your face so drawn? Why is despair in your heart ad your face like the face of one who has made a long journey?" (Sandars, 143) He has to complete the missions to become wiser and gain respect from his people. Although he does not complete his mission successfully he reaches were he had to go and gains much knowledge and power. He also makes many friends and finds out many things about life that he did not know before he went on his journey to find everlasting eternal life. All these happenings were all part of coming of age. Without these accomplishments he would never of had the chance to obtain this knowledge, power, and intuition about life. He found out many knew things on his journey, which were all part of coming of age. So Gilgamesh is also a good example of coming of age even when you are older, and know matter how old you are, you still ha

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Approximate Word count = 1232
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English