V---2nd

[Mark Kohut]

Soon we will get to the famous and oft-quoted by us even
part of V. where Benny proclaims he has learned nothing.

Some scholars and commentators on the novel in general'
have focussed on that sayin' it is one of the novel's weaknesses
'cause in good novels the character 'develops"....

Leaving aside Benny's reliability with that remark, I have read this
from Richard Chase, that afore-mentioned definer of romance vs.
the novel and teacher of Wayne Booth, of The Rhetoric of Fiction: 

"Characters in American fiction who seem to be, because of their
situation and prospects. candidates for initiation do not usually change much
under the pressure of what happens to them"..............

This in his chapter on Twain specifically on Huck Finn and he gives other 
examples....he says when the author says they have changed it usually
sounds like 'a moral' tacked on................................

So, if the Benny part of V. is about Benny's 'initiation' it is in a grand 
tradition.