The Jesus of Suburbia: Green Day and the Classical Bildungsroman
Most American teens have gone through a Green Day phase, so it’s safe to assume that most have heard of their hit album American Idiot. If you haven’t heard of them, Green Day is an American punk-rock band from California formed in 1987. They’ve achieved global recognition, so I’d be surprised if any of you haven’t heard of them at least in passing.
Anyway with singles like “Wake Me Up When September Ends” and “Holiday”, American Idiot rocked the charts and found a home in the bedrooms of angsty teens internationally. But few realize the gem they came by in purchasing this album. You see, American Idiot is, what music enthusiasts have dubbed, a concept album, or an album comprised of songs unified by a common theme or idea. American Idiot in particular tells the story of a teen driven to depart from his life in suburbia and travel into the heart of the city in search of meaning.
After a little research on my part, I found that, not only is this story an example of a coming-of-age narrative, but it parallels a classic novelistic plot structure called the Bildungsroman. The term comes from the synthesis of two German words: bildung or education, and roman or novel. This education novel was popular in the early 1900’s, but lost its prevalence over the years.
The structure centers upon a young protagonist, usually male, who becomes disillusioned with home, sets out on a quest for meaning, struggles in the real world, then, finally, finds meaning in his conforming to society. It’s a rather rigid structure, so it’s no wonder it isn’t all that popular anymore, and yet Green Day resurrected this seemingly dead literary device nearly a century after it went out of practice. Why?
So far as I can tell, they used it to send a message. Their protagonist hates his hometown. He hates his parents and his peers, so he retreats to the city. Here he finds freedom and solidarity with his fellow vagabonds and teenage rebels, as well as solace in a girl and hard drugs. But when his heart is broken, he realizes he’s living a fallacy. His girlfriend left him, his friends are junkies, and he is alone again. Armed with this new understanding, he returns home. He leaves behind his child-like qualities and his immature alter-ego, gets a corporate job, and lives in the suburbs. He does everything that society dictates as normal, and yet he is unsatisfied. Where the classical Bildungsroman would end with this protagonist’s happiness and satisfaction at being acclimated, Green Day deviates. They create a character unhappy with life, even after his socialization. They portray conformity as over-rated and hollow. They urge their listeners to not settle, but to strive for more. And they use the structure of the classical Bildungsroman to do so.
Anyway with singles like “Wake Me Up When September Ends” and “Holiday”, American Idiot rocked the charts and found a home in the bedrooms of angsty teens internationally. But few realize the gem they came by in purchasing this album. You see, American Idiot is, what music enthusiasts have dubbed, a concept album, or an album comprised of songs unified by a common theme or idea. American Idiot in particular tells the story of a teen driven to depart from his life in suburbia and travel into the heart of the city in search of meaning.
After a little research on my part, I found that, not only is this story an example of a coming-of-age narrative, but it parallels a classic novelistic plot structure called the Bildungsroman. The term comes from the synthesis of two German words: bildung or education, and roman or novel. This education novel was popular in the early 1900’s, but lost its prevalence over the years.
The structure centers upon a young protagonist, usually male, who becomes disillusioned with home, sets out on a quest for meaning, struggles in the real world, then, finally, finds meaning in his conforming to society. It’s a rather rigid structure, so it’s no wonder it isn’t all that popular anymore, and yet Green Day resurrected this seemingly dead literary device nearly a century after it went out of practice. Why?
So far as I can tell, they used it to send a message. Their protagonist hates his hometown. He hates his parents and his peers, so he retreats to the city. Here he finds freedom and solidarity with his fellow vagabonds and teenage rebels, as well as solace in a girl and hard drugs. But when his heart is broken, he realizes he’s living a fallacy. His girlfriend left him, his friends are junkies, and he is alone again. Armed with this new understanding, he returns home. He leaves behind his child-like qualities and his immature alter-ego, gets a corporate job, and lives in the suburbs. He does everything that society dictates as normal, and yet he is unsatisfied. Where the classical Bildungsroman would end with this protagonist’s happiness and satisfaction at being acclimated, Green Day deviates. They create a character unhappy with life, even after his socialization. They portray conformity as over-rated and hollow. They urge their listeners to not settle, but to strive for more. And they use the structure of the classical Bildungsroman to do so.