Meredith's Blog

In class last week, the majority of the Thursday lecture involved analyzing certain effective elements within ‘What is the What’, by Dave Eggers. One such element is the genre of which ‘What is the What’ is a part of, bildungsroman. A major problem or loss occurring in the earliest stages of the novel, and multiple events of adversity throughout its course, and self-realization are essential components of bildungsroman, all of which ‘What is the What satisfies in some way or another, proving the genre’s usefulness in comprehending the novel.

In the case of a major issue occurring in the commencing chapters of the novel, Valentino Achak Deng must flee his village from the murhaleen, or the Arab militia, and may not return. This is the key element of the novel in that the majority of the text following concerns his migration across Africa and then the United States. Bildungsroman is here seen in how quickly Deng must mature from this event, and the continuation of this rapid growing up with the strife, death and war that surrounds him in his travels. It is bildungsroman which this flaw is inherent in and aids in our understanding of Deng’s character.

The multitude of issues Deng faces throughout the novel are equally examples of bildungsroman. In his struggle to flee from his village, the disastrous journey across South Sudan and into Ethiopia and Kakuma, and also the death of his childhood friends William K and Moses as a child himself are examples of this. Bildungsroman is a coming of age story, and adapting to these struggles proves Deng to be well suited to surviving all that life throws at him. Life in the United States, however, provides disparate difficulties to the ones he faced in Africa, which are harder to deal with. This is because they are social issues affecting the majority of the population, like unemployment or insufficient funds for university. Deng finds that the idealistic American Dream which his peers and him so longed for was not how the United States was in reality. The bildungsroman nature of the novel indicates this transgression of more difficult problems occurring later on in life, which is an applicable message for much of humanity.

Self-realization occurs within ‘What is the What’ in the moments of clarity which occur for Deng in the novel. One such example is present in the final paragraph, in which Eggers writes, ‘I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with words’ (529). It it his compulsion to tell stories, albeit silent ones, to people which has helped him survive and prosper as much as he did over his life, minimal as it was. The realization that he is able to have ‘unbelievable strength’ deriving from these stories proves that Deng achieves a sense of identity through his experiences (529). Despite his life being riddled with strife, the book as bildungsroman proves that these problems he faces are in fact what make him as strong as he is as a Lost Boy of Sudan.