Success in Failure

What exactly is a "coming of age"? I feel that with each story and work we have read in this class, there is a type of "coming of age" story; although it may not always be clear and apparent, it certainly is there. "Literature changes the world," someone once said. And I feel that most writers try to do so, to change the world, by pointing out the journey of man. All their stories: love stories, maturation stories, and even adventure stories all depict a journey. After all, humans are constantly evolving, always on a journey to something greater, something bigger, something...anything, else.
Jack Burden took a journey, "came of age" in All the King's Men. Blanche took a journey as well, though her journey was to destruction in A Streetcar Named Desire. Not only did the old man journey through learning truths, but so did Tandy, realizing the potential that she had, despite the fact that she is a young girl. And of course, the little, adventurous Athena in "A White Heron" journeyed.
Tandy reminds me of that small heroine, conquerer of the Great Pine Tree. Sure, Tandy did not really conquer anything in Winesburg, Ohio. She didn't rise at dawn to climb up the tallest pine in the forest, didn't brave the dangers of falling off the precarious, swaying branches, didn't see the ocean at dawn and experience the best of life. But I still feel that she was a heroine, in a sense. I really don't know why.
Tandy's journey was finding her name. Or, rather, being given her name and finding herself. In all of the "coming of age" stories we have analyzed in class, every character understands himself better after the journey. And I found that interesting, significant. Why does every "coming of age" story have to end in epiphany? Why is it that every character who embarks on a journey to find more knowledge, to cover more ground, finds what she is looking for? Life isn't fair, but the journeys certainly seem to be.
So, I wonder...if someone doesn't find the truth he is looking for, will he ever be able to become a grotesque? Sherwood Anderson describes a grotesque as being someone who has learned a truth. Someone who has embarked on a journey to find a truth, and has been successful. How ironic. In successfully finding a truth, and declaring that truth "his," so begins the half-human, half-ghost life of a grotesque, haunting those who do not know the truths, and reminiscing on the days before he knew the truths. So was the journey successful? I guess it was. He found what he was looking for, the truth. And yet, he is not really living after finding the truth. Half-dead, half-alive. Half-successful, half-failure. Can it be one or the other? I know that Tandy and the tree-climbing heroine are frozen in time, frozen in literature, but I can't help but be concerned for them. Anxious. Anticipating. They have now come of age; will they now become a grotesque? Will they ever find the truth they are searching for? I hope not...and yet, I hope so.