A Bildungsroman is novel of formation, novel of education, is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the

protagonist from youth to adulthood, and in which, therefore, character change is extremely important. David Copperfield is a bildungsroman, the story of the narrators life from early childhood to maturity. In it Copperfield describes the obstacles he overcame and the unhappy events he lived through before becoming a successful novelist in later years. It is unlikely that Dickens knew the term bildungsroman but he set up his novel along the lines of the classics in that genre. The events of an individuals life from childhood to a successful maturity with special emphasis on the difficulties he faces and overcomes in childhood and youth forms an integral part of these works. Difficulties with parents occur in the early years of the persons story. Fatherless at birth and an orphan before his teen years, David Copperfield has a succession of father substitutes. His is the only point of view given in this novel. Tragedy, also, characterizes English realism. Thomas Hardy in his novel Tess of DUrbervilles describes the tragedy of Tesss life. She has to pass through the series of suffering which does not have a logical relationship with her life. She suffers without doing anything wrong, being a woman in patriarchal society seems to be her only fault. Tesss tragedy is not logical outcome of events. The events take place as they were pre-determined. Within the novel, Tess is doubly fixed: first as a woman and second within Hardys philosophy. Like any other woman of the society, Tess is impulsive, emotional and sensitive. These qualities prove to be her weaknesses.