The Writing of the Vagrancy Motif in Bildungsromans: A Comparative Analysis of Kim Joo-young’s Stingray and Cao Wenxuan’s The Bird

Vagrancy, a common form of human existence, has been closely linked to the historical process of human civilization and, as a result, has become one of the most frequently employed motifs in literature. In Kim Joo-young’s Stingray and Cao Wenxuan’s The Bird, both the young protagonists departed from home and embarked on a journey of self-growth through their direct and indirect experience of vagrancy, thereby reflecting the similarities in the portrayal of the vagrancy motif. Nonetheless, the writing of the vagrancy motif in the two novels also presents differences, characterized by the contrasting depictions of realistic vagrancy featuring “crisis-escapefreedom” and romantic vagrancy featuring “dream-pursuit-return”. The similarities between the two novels are attributed to the correspondences between the vagrancy motif and the Bildungsroman genre, while the differences stem primarily from Kim and Cao's divergent interpretations of the vagrancy motif, with Kim regarding vagrancy as an essential form of human existence, whereas Cao romanticizes vagrancy as the pursuit of one's dream.