sixth sense as a bildungromans

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A Bildungsroman in a Modern Movie A bildungsroman is an archetypal story of coming of age. It is when a character or myth goes from a childlike state to complete a quest to grow or gain knowledge of themselves. This type of story is present in the movie The Sixth Sense by M. Knight Shamalan. You have two main characters in this story, Cole Sear and Dr. Malcolm Crow. Both start out in the story very innocent, then that leads to the quest for knowledge. With that knowledge, they gain a sense of maturity and understanding. Cole Sear is a frightened young boy who has a secret that he feels he cannot tell anyone. He is thought of by his peers as a freak. They tease and even taunt him because of his behavior, the way he portrays emotions, and the way he dresses with his glasses with no lenses. What they don’t realize is that Cole can see dead people. Cole does not feel he can trust anyone with his secret. Not even his own mother knows of his secret of being able to see the dead. He does not want to bother his mother with this because he fears she will think he is a freak and that he will need to be admitted to a hospital for treatment. Dr. Malcolm Crow also has a secret. He has always thought of himself as the best child psychologist. Believing in his abilities, he feels that he has helped many children in need. He is even honored by his peers with an award as an outstanding child psychologist. What Dr. Malcolm Crow does not realize is he has not helped everyone. There is one troubled youth, Vincent Grey, that comes back to face Malcolm as an adult. Dr. Crow realizes too late that he did not help this troubled man. Then Vincent turns a gun on Dr. Crow and shoots him in the stomach and kills him and then he commits suicide himself. When Dr. Crow meets Cole, he sees the same troubles in the little boy as he did with Vincent. He sees that he has

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