DEMIAN BOOK ESSAY

Demian Book Essay

Demian Book Essay

Introduction

Demian, published in 1919, was one of the first successes of the author Hermann Hesse, Nobel laureate in 1946 (Field 1970). This is a novel of initiation often has the characteristic of being divided into three distinct parts. In the first we see the confrontation of the young and naive Emil with the world of evil, from the outside. In the second part we see how our heroes leave their family and leave this world and youth in which they lived so happily (Hesse 1965). In the novel, Sinclair begins to ask questions about the world around him. In the third part we see narration of the final development of the main character on the eve of WWI. And all this development will take place in Emil's influence of this mysterious Demian. In this essay, I explore the concepts of good and evil from the perspective of Sinclair, one of the main characters in the story.

Body

Emil Sinclair is a young man from a good conservative family. For some time, he has the impression of living in two different worlds. One of the worlds is a happy, caring and enlightened world built around himself mainly by his family and the social milieu in which he lives. The other world is the one he observes outside his home: a cruel, unjust, prohibited, outdoor life which Emil knows little about. One evening when he ends up with classmates, he is part of a party of friend including a wicked Kromer (Hesse & Kurecka 2001). Everyone tells his adventures of his past. To drawn an edge of legality, and to draw the attention to him, Emil invents a story in which he allegedly stole a bag of apples in a neighboring property. Kromer doubted his words and made him swear that he is indeed telling the truth. Emil, drawn into the spiral of lies, confirmed the story inventing more details on it. Thereupon, he replied Kromer had trapped him into his own trap. Emil had told that the owner had even proposed a reward of 2 marks to the man who found the thief. And for not reporting Emil, Kromer asked to pay the award from his pocket. Trapped in his lying, he dared not deny this. Two marks were an inordinate amount for a student at the time, and Emil sees around him a ...