Since the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, Europe has undergone profound economic and social transformations. Traditional handicrafts and agrarian economic structures were challenged by modern industry and capitalist economies, leading to the disintegration of the old social order. After the revolutions of 1848, the expansion of capitalist economies in Europe entered a new phase. However, this economic transformation and expansion did not bring widespread spiritual fulfillment to the bourgeois class; instead, it triggered a crisis of values and identity. In the latter half of the 19th century, the Bildungsroman re-emerged as a literary form closely tied to efforts to preserve the individual as the bearer of Romantic and Enlightenment ideals amid industrialization, technological advancement, prosperity, and politicization. While modernization brought material prosperity, it also threatened traditional humanistic values, and the revival of the Bildungsroman was literature's response to this crisis.

I. The Bildungsroman and the Development of Capitalist Economy

The Bildungsroman of the Realist period retained the basic paradigm of youth identity-seeking and episodic narrative, but under the influence of political, social, and economic forces, the conflicts between the individual and society, spirit and matter, and ideals and reality became more pronounced. In the latter half of the 19th century, with the accelerated development of capitalism, bourgeois values began to be reflected in literary works, emphasizing the close relationship between hard work and wealth accumulation. Adalbert Stifter's Indian Summer attempted to reconstruct the classical Bildung tradition, but its protagonist's self-cultivation was detached from social reality, losing its self-determining quality. Gustav Freytag's Debit and Credit affirmed the power of traditional morality through the contrast between its protagonist and foil characters, yet it avoided addressing the deep rift between the individual and modern society. Gottfried Keller's Green Henry profoundly depicted the impact of economic factors on individual Bildung, as the protagonist Henry abandoned his artistic career due to financial hardship. Keller's work exemplifies true bourgeois realism, focusing on the central role of money in bourgeois development. This paper will analyze the complex relationship between modern capitalist factors and individual Bildung in Green Henry, exploring the characteristics of the modern economic order and its shaping effect on individuals, thereby revealing the historical roots of the spiritual crisis during the transition to modernity.

II. The Erosion of Value: The Paradigm Shift from Value Order to Price Logic

Through two case studies—Madame Margarete's antique shop and Henry's art workshop—this section examines the shift from a value order to a price logic under modern capitalist economic conditions. Madame Margarete's antique shop is a space imbued with tradition and mystique. She adheres to a premodern economic logic, converting surplus into gold for preservation, reflecting the premodern equation of precious metals with wealth. Her economic transactions with villagers were based on interpersonal trust and dependence rather than the abstract contractual relationships of modern market economies. However, after her death, her estate was monetized by her heirs, symbolizing the collapse of the old economic world. Money shifted from being a "representation" to a "medium," with its value becoming abstracted, and its power lying in ensuring circulation and exchange.

Henry's art workshop, on the other hand, illustrates the impact of modern industrial logic on artistic creation. The workshop operated under strict labor division, reducing artworks to mechanically reproduced industrial products. The owner, Harpelsaat, oriented production toward market demand, selling works across regions, where the intrinsic value of art became irrelevant—what mattered was whether the product met market expectations and could circulate quickly. Henry despised Harpelsaat's commercial approach and left the workshop to pursue free artistic expression. Yet this exposed a structural contradiction in modern art production: artists must either accept the commodification of art and abandon value pursuits or insist on artistic value and be excluded from the market. Henry chose the latter, but this also meant his artistic career would struggle to sustain itself. Ultimately, Henry sold his works to a secondhand shop—art escaped commodification, but the artist lost his agency. The modern market mechanism paradoxically reveals the irreconcilable tension between value and price.

III. "The Man in the Gap": The Conflict Between Life's Mission and the Need to Make a Living

In Green Henry, Keller introduces the new chapter "The Parchment Certificate" to explore the conflict between the protagonist's life mission and the necessity of earning a living under modern capitalist economic conditions. This chapter marks Henry's transition from his hometown to the wider world while also revealing the practical link between Bildung ideals and material foundations. In the German Bildungsroman tradition, financial issues were often downplayed, but in Green Henry, Keller places economic concerns at the heart of the protagonist's Bildung journey. The inheritance left by Henry's father—the parchment certificate—becomes the material foundation for his Bildung aspirations. This ancient financial document is not only a perpetual annuity bond but also symbolizes the challenge traditional order and wealth concepts face in the new era. Henry ultimately sells the certificate to a collector for liquidity, embodying modern economic thinking and behavior. However, his understanding of the art market remains tinged with Romanticism—he hopes to achieve rapid social mobility through a single masterpiece, which contradicts modern capitalist logic. Henry's internal contradictions make him a "man in the gap" between eras, belonging neither to the traditional world nor able to integrate into modern society, ultimately leading to his tragic fate.

IV. Conclusion

By comparing Henry to a modern "Robinson Crusoe," this section examines his struggle between spirit and matter in modern capitalist society. Henry arrives in the city with Enlightenment ideals and Christian values, only to encounter the shocks of modern industry and capitalism—artistic value diverges from market price, and inferior works fetch high prices by catering to market demand. He strives for classical Bildung while grappling with material needs, unwilling to submit art to commercial logic. Henry's inability to adapt to the transition between old and new worlds reflects Keller's insight into the conflict between tradition and modernity: how modern individuals relinquish an obsolete past and adapt to a new social landscape. Henry's dilemma is not just personal but a universal existential challenge of modernity.