Coming Of Age Analysis

Coming of age is not something that happens overnight, it takes many different challenges and experiences to occur. When it does occur however the person who experiences it finds a new motivation and understanding about there life which can drive them into the future. This occurs to a character Minke whose story is told by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in two books, This Earth of Mankind and Child of All Nations, about his coming of age during Dutch colonial rule in Surabaya, Indonesia starting in 1898. The first book This Earth of Mankind begins the maturing process for Minke as he is faced with many obstacles in his life which he must overcome. These include being a native student at a predominantly Dutch school, falling in love with a half native …show more content…
This drastically changes throughout the stories as he matures though his education both in school and from the people around him. At the first Minke thought that at his H.B.S school he was given “a broad general knowledge, much broader than that received by students of the same level in many of the European countries” which gave him a greater understanding of the world (This Earth of Mankind, 16). His belief that he had more knowledge than most though inhibited him from coming of age sooner because he was very stuck with his views that being Dutch was the goal which kept him from understanding his own people. Minke did not start to change his ways of thinking until his teacher Miss Magda Peters and friends Miriam and Sarah de la Croix started to tell him about how people argue about whether or not native Indonesians could manage themselves. These continued discussions make Minke think more and realize the inequalities the Dutch forced on the Natives, but now he has to decide the best way to approach the problems occurring in his country and to get support. Trying to figure out how to deal with these problems continues into the second book Child of All Nations as Minke continues his coming of age process as he learns more and more about the state of his country and the inequalities surrounding it. For Minke to realize the best way to share this information with the natives he gets educated by four people Khouw Ah Soe, Ter Haar, Jean Marais, and Kommer not through schooling but the sharing of experiences. Kouw Ah Soe and Ter Haar tell Minke in their own ways about the events around the world that the Dutch are hiding from the Indonesians to keep them from finding a sense of nationalism. Jean Marais and Kommer who were much closer to Minke constantly bickered with Minke about the true way