Demian: themes and analysis

¶ … Demian

Although many different themes populate Herman Hesse's novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth, in some way they all seem to relate to the concepts of spirituality, and to spiritual enlightenment in particular. In many ways, this novel functions as a spiritual journey for its protagonist, Emil Sinclair, who is guided by his close friend, confident and mentor Max Demian. While chronicling Sinclair's spiritual awakening, Hesse utilizes a number of passages that are emotionally intense in order to better demonstrate the overall significance of the spiritual implications of this story. A close examination of the text in Demian reveals that the author uses emotional language to issue a sense of excitement and enthusiasm in both the reader and in Sinclair to propel the latter towards the theme of spiritual enlightenment.

In many of the passages of this novel, there are concepts and characters that are referred to in a divine sense that help the reader o understand that they represent certain aspects of Sinclair's spiritual journey. One of the most powerful of these is when Sinclair initially encounters Beatrice in the park. Hesse uses extremely emotional language that actually refers to this woman in terms that are more closely related to a god than to a human being. For the most part, the author does this with the sheer emotion of the words he describes Sinclair's attraction with, as the following quotation makes extremely clear. "Suddenly, a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice" (Hesse). This quotation is full of emotionally charged language that has divine connotations. Sinclair's attraction towards Beatrice is described as "deep," "fervent," and as a "craving," all of which showcase how much he likes her. Yet these powerful feelings are contextualized in a religious sense, one which makes Sinclair desire to "worship." By using this emotionally potent language, Hesse is emphasizing Sinclair's excitement towards not just Beatrice but towards his own rising sense of spirituality, which is the primary theme of this novel.

In other parts of Demian, the author uses emotional language to demonstrate just how much a need for spiritual awakening is present, not just within Sinclair, but within most people and those that are Christian in particular. The end result of this emotional language, however, is still the same: it propels the reader along Sinclair's journey for spiritual enlightenment by creating a sense of excitement and urgency for such a journey and its climax. The following quotation demonstrates this fact very well.

I have no objection to worshipping this God Jehovah, far from it. But I mean we ought to consider everything sacred, the entire world, not merely the artificially separated half! Thus alongside the divine service we should also have a service for the devil (Hesse).