Ragged Dick: Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks
by Horatio Alger

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Ragged Dick: Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks: Genre 1 key example

Key Examples in Ragged Dick: Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks

Genre
Explanation and Analysis:

​​​​​​Ragged Dick is a good example of a Bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel that focuses on a protagonist's development during childhood and adolescence. As a Bildungsroman, the novel follows Dick as he transforms himself from a homeless boot-black to a "respectable" young man with a bright future in business. In Alger's view, coming of age is a straightforward matter of self-improvement: Dick consciously develops himself by learning to exercise thrift and economy, gaining an education, and learning the manners of the moneyed upper class. In many classic Bildungsromans, such as Jane Eyre or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the process of becoming an adult involves a loss of innocence or a period of emotional turmoil. By contrast, Alger's narrative is unequivocally positive; in Ragged Dick, there are no emotional costs to growing up.