"Destiny" and Hesse's Demian

Author(s): Robert P. Newton

Source: The German Quarterly , Autumn, 1985, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 519-
539
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/406942

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Wiley and American Association of Teachers of German are collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to The German Quarterly

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
ROBERT P. NEWTON
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

"Destiny" and Hesse's Demian

1.

Nun sollte ein Krieg kommen. Nun sollte das zu geschehen

beginnen, was wir oft und oft geredet hatten. Und Demian
hatte so viel davon vorausgewuf3t. Wie seltsam, dab jetzt
der Strom der Welt nicht mehr irgendwo an uns vorbeilau-
fen sollte-, dal3 er jetzt pl6tzlich mitten durch unsere
Herzen ging, daB Abenteuer und wilde Schicksale uns rie-
fen und dab jetzt oder bald der Augenblick da war, wo die
Welt uns brauchte, wo sie sich verwandeln wollte. Demian
hatte recht, sentimental war das nicht zu nehmen. Merk-
wiirdig war nur, dal3 ich die so einsame Angelegenheit
'Schicksal' mit so vielen, mit der ganzen Welt erleben sollte.
Gut denn! (Hesse, GD, III, 252)
Thus Emil Sinclair braces himself for the First World War in Hermann
Hesse's novel Demian. But Sinclair is right; it does indeed seem strange
that his personal fate is suddenly to be shared even with the bourgeois
"herd" which is otherwise disdained by Sinclair and Demian (and Hesse),
for we had previously learned that "Wer wirklich gar nichts will als sein
Schicksal, der hat nicht seinesgleichen mehr, der steht allein und hat nur
den kalten Weltenraum um sich" (GD, III, 222). One's destiny is inexorably
one's own, "nicht ein beliebiges, " and one must "es in sich ausleben, ganz
und ungebrochen" (GD, III, 221). On the other hand, destiny seems to
come from outside; we are its agents, without responsibility: "Alle Menschen,
die auf den Gang der Menschheit gewirkt haben, alle ohne Unterschied
waren nur darum ffihig und wirksam, weil sie schicksalbereit waren. Das
pa8t auf Moses und Buddha, es paBt auf Napoleon und Bismarck. Welcher
Welle einer dient, von welchem Pol aus er regiert wird, das liegt nicht in
seiner Wahl" (GD, III, 239). Our crowded, inscrutable wordly destiny (our
lot) leaves us no choice but compliance, and yet we seem free and even

519

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
520 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

obliged to "want" our lonely inner destiny (our true sel

both paradoxically become the same.
Not only in Demian, but also in other writings of H
one encounters an apparently tangled confusion of conc
"destiny." Yet, especially if Demian is to be read as a gu
in their search for a self, or for any age in the throes of
crisis (and the book was incubated by Hesse's own mid
and "fate" (or "destiny") are clearly related for Hesse-th
important to examine these vital ideas as such and t
implications, both personal and social.
Ernst Cassirer has spoken of the return of fatalism in
(293), a remark prompted by observing modes of though
wald Spengler's Decline of the West (1918-22), which wer
Hesse. And our own age has still to deal with various un
deterministic world-views, be they dialectical materialism
ogy, be they behaviorism, ethology or other studies of t
fatalities of man. All of these, as does "destiny" in Demia
our views of the causes and "meaning" of human events s
as on our private ethical decisiveness and impetus to prod
The force of Schicksal ("fate" or "destiny") appears in
before Demian, but only in the latter novel is it central
infused with symbolic power. Though Hesse's fate-moti
an obvious one, it is usually overridden in critical study
Hesse's Jungian symbolism or Oriental sources.' Josep
Frau Eva in Demian with self, life in all its fullness, he
and evil, the Magna Mater and mankind's origin and
sure, Hesse was inspired by Jung's anima and other arch
of Mileck's equations derive from the novel, but if they ar
ing insights we must try to determine what Hesse him
saying "good and evil," "self' and "destiny." Indeed, acco
L. Sammons, "what is really needed to get to the bottom
is an analysis of his language" (350).
In its own day, Demian was by no means received as a
exercise in literary symbolism. Many observers thou
urges and frustrations of an important sector of postw
Thomas Mann has described its "electrifying effect" and
famous earlier Weltanschauungs-success, Goethe's Werth
Alfred D6blin, Stefan Zweig, Jung himself, Ernst Robe
Buber and others have recorded their vivid impressions
contemporary Germans, and not only the very youn
revelation, an exhilarating thrust toward self-liberation
shackles. Yet- from our own perspective - we can ask if
reinforced social and political penchants whose results w
ating. It was Hesse's call to self-commitment; but, looki

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 521

see that it may have also encouraged an elite politic

self-righteousness of groups "at the service" of de
crete program of action. Demian insists that we mu
nature, to whatever suffering that may lead. But th
"Germanic" spirit of actively accepting one's fa
the novel's thematic Schicksal probably coincided
interpretations of the Great War as a movement of
schichte als Weltgericht (Vondung, 62-84). Finally,
have deterred a discovery of self through purposef
and social world, the path long ago pointed out by
one of Hesse's Immortals. These are questions of no

2.

The semantic fields of fate, destiny, providence, doom, or Schicksal, Ge-

schick, Vorsehung, Verhiingnis consists of weighty words with long cultural
traditions. Hesse cannot invoke Schicksal without calling forth potent re-
sponses, as was his obvious intent.
In English, destiny seems to be the most general word for the power that
controls events in an individual life or in history, or for the course of those
events themselves. It may particularly refer to one's station or walk or
mission in life and is sometimes thought of as not incompatible with a degree
of freedom in the execution of its decrees. Fate implies a more inexorable
determination, whose outcome is often unwelcome or at least unwilled. One
wouldn't say, "it was his fate to be rich," unless, like Croesus, the rich man
suffered as a direct result. But we might well say, with a touch of self-satis-
faction, "it was my destiny to be rich." One's lot is one's given share of the
world's goods and tasks. Doom is irrevocable and fatal; fortune is often good
to us, sometimes awarded by chance, but also a prize to be struggled for.
The German Schicksal is the power which predetermines events and those
events themselves, not always unfavorable (though usually so), but emphat-
ically solemn and binding. It is important to note that Schicksal incorporates
both English fate and destiny, so that the occasional hopefully heroic ring of
English "destiny" is not so readily available in German.
Geschick is less weighty than Schicksal and may imply the general cir-
cumstances of one's life; it is even subject to manipulation. Verhangnis is as
dreadful a judgment as doom, while Gliick is a favorable turn of events like
good fortune. Vorsehung (providence), Sendung (mission), and Berufung
(call) are originally Christian notions; Bestimmung (task) and Los (lot, often
accepted with resignation) derive from a more diffuse metaphysical basis.
Schickung and Fiugung are blows or acts of fate, the latter often fortunate
for those concerned. Hesse uses Verhdingnis and Los only incidentally in
Demian; words like Vorsehung and Bestimmung he makes use of elsewhere,
foregoing the hard, brazen tone of Schicksal.

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 522 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

The figures of speech proliferating around German Sc

it as a human power. They speak of the grace (Gunst) of
of fate, an irony of fate; say that fate willed it so, that f
that he challenged fate or quarreled with it. Fate is a
react emotionally and morally; we are not indifferent to it
ble, cruel, malicious (blise) or, mayhap, kind. In short, it
tion of language that "necessity" in the course of ev
something like our own will, which also sets limits an
The conceptual genesis of the idea of "destiny" is thu
the universe of the mode of causality we know from
judgment; it is the likes of us.
Greek, Roman and Germanic mythology assigned th
sisters who presided over birth and life and death, meti
from the root for which word in their respective langu
Parcae are even named. In the concept of "nemesis" an e
is introduced, that of fate as a retribution for human pr
Greek daimon (a controlling spirit in a specific situation
was transplanted into human consciousness, which was e
of as moved by both a "good" and an "evil" daimon, so t
say: "A man's character (ethos) is his fate (daimon)." S
to speak of his daimonion, an inner divine voice of advi
These -the daimon and daimonion -are of obvious relevance to Hesse's
Demian, and the connection has been frequently pointed out. But Hesse's
position with regard to the persistent debate on freedom and necessity- a
debate that began with astrology, with Democritus, the Epicureans and
Stoics, that took a religious turn in Christian "providence" and was revived
under the pressure of scientific modes of thought-Hesse's position was
never, to my knowledge, systematically worked out by him in just those
terms, although it is one of his basic themes, his views on which we will
try to recover.
The problem of destiny in its relation to man has been treated by a number
of German authors, especially in the fateful 1930s and '40s, and these might
be reviewed as a comparative background to Hesse, since the authors in
question shared the same historical and, probably in part at least, the same
intellectual experiences.3 In addition, by recurring to works that specifically
analyse the German word Schicksal, we can avoid the pitfall of a lack of
semantic congruence between that word and eitherfate or destiny in English.
For these pre- and post-World War II writers, it is the active relationship
between the individual and his destiny that is the focus of interest. True,
they speak variously of a "distant," a "transsubjective," an "encompassing"
destiny that imposes itself on the world as a whole with its hapless denizens,
but there is also a "personal," "individual" destiny that may even be seen
as one's "possession" (Baden, 18). In the ancient Germanic ethos, we learn
from several historical studies, a threatening destiny is adopted by heroically

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 523

wanting what one at any rate must do (Gehl, 1

also agreed that "Fate leads the consenting and dr
some nonhistorical, more existentially oriented ana
possession, can even have a comforting quality
us" (Baden, 19). We make the assumption that we
it contains chance elements (Mfiller-Freienfels, 17
is a harmony of self and fate (Baden, p. 28). This
destiny implies, of course, that self and destiny a
can stand outside and take an attitude toward its d
37), consider it a reward, a challenge, a punishmen
"destiny" is itself a value concept. If it were not s
our hopes and wishes it would simply be "what
think of destiny we necessarily think of a meaning
and of the laws by which its judgments are passed (
Since self and destiny are not the same- thou
unwilling marriage- we cannot say without qualif
that character is destiny.5 On the contrary, it can
to explain fate as a consequence of character have
structed an image of the forever invisible characte
of fate. We claim to derive fate from character
character from fate (Mfiller-Freienfels, 151). Seen
view, life in its entirety is indeed characteristic f
that very reason it is difficult, before its end, to
image of the self. Even one of the writers on fate d
period comes to the, for that time, surprising con
concept of fate can sometimes be equated with
realization" (Gehl, 195).
This cooperative relation of self and destiny has b
of freedom and necessity by Martin Buber in h
product also of Hesse's time (1925): "At the opposi
by destiny or nature or men there does not stand
nature or men but to commune and to covenant with them. To do this it is
true one must first have become independent; but this independence is a
foot bridge, not a dwelling place." (91). Note Buber's emphasis that the self
must first have won a certain autonomy, before it can willingly become
compact with fate.
The same idea of communion between destiny (as what is given by the
world) and a self-directing consciousness can be cast in empirical psycholog-
ical terms, as it has been by Ralph Ross in a study of Symbols and Civilization:
"Learning the way in which we are conditioned permits a deliberate manipu-
lation of those forces to yield desired ends, to alter the behavior of oneself
and others. This is surely as persuasive a description as freedom as we can
find" (153-54).
Hesse's understanding of the relationship of "self' and "destiny" is dubi-

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 524 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fail 1985

ous, we shall argue, precisely in failing to recognize the

and the necessity of their interaction with the world.

3.

As Hesse was writing Demian in 1916-17 in the middle of the First World
War, he was still reeling from a series of blows that "destiny" had struck
his own personal life.6 His public opposition to the chauvinism of the intellec-
tuals that flourished early in the war had called down upon his head a salvo
of calumny from his German countrymen; his father died in 1916; his wife
verged on a mental and emotional breakdown; his son Martin was danger-
ously ill. Hesse entered psychoanalytic consultations with J. B. Lang, a
disciple of Carl Jung, in 1916 and forced himself to confront his own inner
emotional "disorder" and "guilt."
But it didn't take all of this to call his attention to "destiny." Mark Boulby
names "fate" and the "concept of unity" as "propositions central to the
author's outlook" (Boulby, 165). Peter Camenzind, in Hesse's novel of that
name (1904), comes to believe that suffering and death are purposeful in
individual lives and learns to content himself with the particular character
which, despite his efforts to overcome it, his early life has apparently ir-
revocably impressed upon him (GD, I, 294, 369). Hans Giebenrath (in
Beneath the Wheel, 1905) still has on his deathbed the look of a person with
"das eingeborne Recht, ein anderes Schicksal als andere zu haben" (GD,
I, 545). In Gertrud (1910), Kuhn finds destiny to be arbitrary and "not good, "
though we can be stronger than it, at least for moments (GD, II, 191), while
in "Emil Kolb" (1910) the theme, according to Reichert, is the protagonist's
inability to "hear the call of nature within himself," a call that Hesse will
later designate as Schicksal (35).
In these and other works of Hesse, one finds the word Schicksal in the
various usual nuances of meaning that it has in the German language, but
basically as a force external to consciousness, one tending to oppose or
restrict our personal will. In this early period of Hesse, destiny is not usually
isolated from external circumstances and equated with the inner self, as it
comes to be in Demian. It is instead a predestined conjunction of external
events, or it is the outer events in so far as they impinge on individuals (often
the total circumstances of an individual life, frequently seen as significant
and difficult), or it is the apparently unchangeable relationship of the individual
to the world. In our previous discussion of the concept we saw that, though
"determinacy" is obviously constitutive of destiny, this fixity can be variously
thought to inhere in the outward course of the world, or to lie within a
person's character, or, rather, a partially independent self can be seen in
interaction with the givens of his lot.
It is in Demian, and in some contemporary essays such as "Zarathustras
Wiederkehr" and "Eigen-Sinn," both of 1919, that "destiny" for Hesse

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 525

becomes a dominant, charismatic idea, one whic

novel but which, gathering momentum, comes to
the book (from the sixth chapter on), displacing or
such as "self' or "soul" with which Hesse had b
The destiny idea simply takes over the story- pos
a conclusion by relating the theme to the nove
narrative is always difficult for Hesse since the sp
obviously must not fail, yet it also dare not p
success, no more than the life of the author. But it
succumbs to "destiny" as a welcome self-absolut
world's misery, rather than as a structural device
In the novel's prologue (that of the fictional auto
initially speaks of trying to live out "was von selb
(GD, III, 101). Sinclair is beginning to listen to the
he is striving to become "completely himself' (102)
und Wurf aus den Tiefen, seinem eigenen Zie
intended meaning is the same as that later refe
destiny," the ideas and images here at the nove
emotive and motivating value; the self is still a pot
an experiment; it is open to development. As "desti
foregrounded in Demian, however, Schicksal assum
cance of "the nature of the self that one is prede
Yet Hesse proves unable to avoid stark inner contr
of Schicksal. From the sixth chapter on, it is i
confidence and ever greater confusion of signific
sometimes one with destiny and sometimes only i
cited passages from Demian contrasting fate as an
with a destiny (the self) that works from within.
the latter, he unresistingly merges with the forme
through icy, lonely spheres, but destiny is to taste
good and utmost evil. Though each individual has
the same time really the destiny of all mankind. O
inexorably rigid mien, as it serves a cause it is no
220), yet we are invited to scorn the conformism
"personal, freely chosen" ideals (253). However,
this cowardice and apathy as a fated weakness; th
Kromer, Hesse explains in a letter much later (195
(a clearly implied lower level) only because they c
level (GW, XI, 36). We are not told how ethical or
might apply in a scheme of determinism.
Hesse's equivocations stem, in essence, from an i
himself the question of free will. In Demian the g
references deny it, and yet without at least some
summons to seek and obey one's destiny- the v

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
526 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

would appear radically meaningless. If man is truly witho

to admonish him in any way, while, on the other han
publishing the message of Demian is to some avail, it
credits his public with the ability to respond. Unless, th
to argue that his book's fated publication is destiny's wa
audience's destined response-which could not be disp
arguments would certainly transport us into a realm wh
and feeling, and hence literature, are no longer of conce
leads us partway into just such a realm.
The novel is fraught with expressions of unequivocal det
declares outright, "Man hat naimlich keinen freien Wille
although he qualifies it by saying one cannot think wha
sticking point in all discussions of free will. (Perhaps we
out our "wanting," our intentions, but if our "wanting"
really free, i.e. random and unrelated to outer or inner
past or present, to world, body or spirit, it would not b
something happening to us.) Demian then explains that t
carry out commands "from within" (GD, III, 152). Yet this
shown to be determined when Sinclair has the insight: "E
'Amt,' aber fiir keinen eines, das er selber wihlen, umsch
verwalten durfte" (220). One may end as a poet, ma
criminal, "Dies war nicht seine Sache, ja dies war letzten
Seine Sache war, das eigene Schicksal zu finden, nicht ein
Among the possible callings mentioned here, incidentally
etc. - one notes none for which Hesse would not read
eligible. Sinclair doesn't consider the possibility of having
a doctor, an engineer, a factory worker or a bookstore c
of which Hesse pursued as a young man-and left. As in S
it is all or nothing, only spiritual extremes are authenti
"golden mean" is declared a German bourgeois enervation
"Nichts davon durfte man wdihlen, nichts durfte man w
nur sich wollen, nur sein Schicksal" (GD, III, 222). Pistori
in religious studies, says he would like to stand at the se
without personal wishes ("dem Schicksal zur Verftigung [s
che," 221). All men who have influenced human histor
outset of this study, were able to do so only because the
fate"; "Welcher Welle [of history] einer dient, von welche
wird, das liegt nicht in seiner Wahl" (239). Hesse's determ
on occasion like Marx's ironclad historical dialectic. At on
he asserts that Communism would come and triumph "au
dagegen wiren" (GW X, 515). (But at the same time H
economic mode of thought specialized, one-sided and inf
probably the hope Marx gives for moral progress throug
tination that encouraged Hesse.)

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 527

As we see, by Demian's light we are not allow

toward the earthly works of destiny, a view contr
in language itself. We dare not see its act as an
support), nor suffer its "bitterness," nor enjoy
likes of us. It is simply there, to be accepted a
not to be cursed or embraced in its real events. Th
This poses fundamental problems of meaning. How
self as an unknown content, in ignorance of those
emotions and patterns of thought that surely mu
self? True willing must have an object; one cannot
how can one want even this empty necessity, if o
at all?
Hesse refers us to natural history. One must conceive this determinacy
as a matter of biology and evolution. Whenever revolutions occur, it is those
species who are "schicksalbereit" that survive and prosper (GD, III, 239).
We know they were ready for fate because they survived, and they survived
because they were ready for fate. Fate is simply "what has happened," a
tautology. Hesse succumbs here to the circularity pointed out by Miller-
Freienfels, ostensibly deriving fate from character, when one has really
derived character from fate.
In other works by Hesse the relevant passages are also frequently of a
determinist bent. "Ein Stiickchen Theologie" (1932), an apparently straight-
forward exposition of Hesse's religious beliefs, states quite clearly: "da3
wir wohl nach dem Guten streben sollen, soweit wir verm6gen, daB wir aber
fir die Unvollkommenheit der Welt und ftir unsere eigene nicht verantwort-
lich sind, daB wir uns selbst nicht regieren, sondern regiert werden, daB
es fiber unserem Erkennen einen Gott oder sonst ein 'Es' gibt, dessen
Diener wir sind, dem wir uns fiberlassen diirfen" (GW, X, 75). Hesse admits
this is couched in almost Christian terms, but he contends it is also implicit
in Brahmanism, Buddhism and in Laotse.
The spirit of submission to fate is quintessential Hesse: "DaB der einzelne
Mensch, einerlei ob er vor dem Weltkrieg oder vor einem Blumengarten
steht, die Aul3enwelt als Erscheinungswelt des Einen, Gottlichen erlebt und
sich ihm einordnet, halte ich ftir das erste und herrschende Kennzeichen
meiner Art.""8 As always with Hesse, however, we can find contradictory
views that recognize guilt, moral effort, doubt and self-examination, and
even a remark in 1917 admitting that, though the war will serve "der Befrei-
ung der Seele in Europa, " this liberation would also have taken place without
it (GB, I, 350). Such a private comment subverts the spiritual fatality of
World War I as symbolized by the hawk breaking from the egg in Demian,
and as expressed by calling the war a manifestation of divinity, in the passage
just cited.
The simultaneous fixity and force of fate, and a passive reception of it,
are deeply implicated in the imagery and language of Demian. Sinclair thinks

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
528 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

of "destiny" in terms of animal and human images with q

and forcefulness. The emblematic sparrow hawk breakin
shell is a metaphor for the bursting of the shell of imp
the self (and the shell of an outlived society by the war
of a naturally programmed event. The fleetingly seen B
an image that fatefully changes Sinclair's life; the pic
draws is "eine Art G6tterbild, " "steif und maskenhaft, "
wie triumerisch, ebenso starr wie heimlich lebendig"
mingled constraint and dynamism, even violence, are ab
Sinclair's observations of Demian, who is clearly mar
destiny. (Sinclair's destiny is said to be his Damon [=
178], and in a later image of Demian, Sinclair's fate can
[223].) From the beginning, Demian's face and glance are
and inflexible force; we hear of his "beinah fanatische und
lose Aufmerksamkeit" (146); he looks like animals, trees,
of his periodic trances his eyes are open yet unseeing, "st
oder in eine gro8e Ferne gewendet," motionless, as if ca
age-old, cold, dead and full of secret, intense life, surro
and starry space -a cosmological aura later ascribed to de
61). In a sketch that Sinclair draws to record a dream, a pi
both himself and Demian, "Der Blick ging fiber mich w
Starrheit, voll von Schicksal" (211).
Finally, when destiny appears in the guise of war, it pee
grauenhaften Maske" (251), and the soldiers who "de
prachtvoll niihern" have a "festen, fernen, ein wenig wi
der nichts von Zielen weil3 und volles Hingegebensein
bedeutet" (254). Here again, destiny has nothing to do
necessity, although implicit in the word itself is the no
judges and decides. The soldier's look is, by the way,
invention. In December, 1914, Hesse reports: "Bei hunder
Verwundeten sah ich einen bald miiden, bald erregten, i
und fiberlegnen Blick, einen Blick, der den Tod kenn
nimmer allzu wichtig nimmt. Das ist der Standpunkt, de
sonst nie kennenlernt. Ein guter Standpunkt" (GB, I,
This well-established leitmotif of destiny's unseeing st
patible then with a new concept of destiny as the benev
in communion with the self, when Hesse attempts to re
through a new image, "das neue Bild, in dem mein Schic
(233)- Frau Eva, mother and lover. But even she, with he
of love, is also ultimately monumentalized in Sinclair's b
her as a "G6ttergestalt, " a cave in starry space, torture
dreams-with closed eyes (255). As with the other fat
no eye-contact of self and destiny; no recognizable h
flected in destiny's transfixing stare; there is no awaren

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 529

between self and the given world that confronts it

Though these images of destiny contain "vitality
finding one's self or one's destiny is normally n
growth or the development of something unfinis
a seeking, finding or encountering of the pre-exis
self, or comes or gets to it, or more passively stand
by fate, waits for or comes home to it. A rare exc
und unheimliche Regung des Wachstums" (239) in
finder is the expectant, receptive subordinate; th
the immovable point of reference or unbending f
Thus from various points of view, we have seen
that is determined; its fate is fixed. We know now
- condemned to be sure, but without the burden
that haunt free moral choice.
Unfortunately, that seems not to be the case. Sinclair and Hesse cannot
live with the peace that they have made. For how are they now to strike
the spark of moral courage needed to brave the dismay of irrevocable destiny?
All systems of fatalism have as their goal the assuaging of spiritual pain- the
pain of living with hateful things that cannot be changed, the pain of remem-
bering our sins and errors that cannot be revoked, the pain of knowing we
should now be attempting what we are idly omitting to do. But to afford
such welcome relief, the doctrines of fatalism must leave us at least a
remnant of free will, the freedom to willingly accept or willfully not to
approve the destiny that is ours. In fact, such doctrines often teach an active
pursuit of harmony with destiny, whose laws, the laws of life and nature,
we may comprehend and exploit. This is true of both Stoicism and the
Taoism that Hesse so admired: "To return to the root is Repose; it is called
going back to one's Destiny; going back to one's Destiny is to find the
Eternal Law, " we are instructed in the Book of Tao (Laotse, Tao Teh Ching,
591; XVI: "Knowing the Eternal Law").
Hesse's lifelong search for his self is severely constrained in Demian by
equating the self with a rigid destiny, an identity he does not insist on so
relentlessly in his other works. Hence, in contradiction, there also appear
in Demian, especially toward the beginning, passages which concede to the
self a freer creative power; in the prologue there was announced the Nietz-
schean motif of the self as a "Versuch und Wurf aus den Tiefen" (102). A
similar passage in the thematically related essay "Krieg und Frieden" (1918)
declares that man is nothing fixed, developed (Gewordenes) and completed,
but rather something developing (werdend), an experiment, an intimation
and future (GW X, 436). Later in Demian we are allowed the moral autonomy
(and implied freedom) to be our own judges (GD, III, 158), and Sinclair
does not hesitate to impose upon himself "Verantwortlichkeit und Selbst-
zucht" (174) in a cult ritual."
In all men there inhere, we learn further, the possibilities of humanity, but

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
530 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

one must become conscious of them in order to pursue t

can be made manifest through self-insight (GD, III,
very passage where Hesse denies our freedom to cho
Sinclair still talks of our duty to seek ourselves, a duty w
without a power of choice (220, also 238). In this same, ot
context he reiterates that his life is a "Wurf ins Ungew
Neuem, vielleicht zu Nichts" (221), a kind of free-fallin
dating Heidegger.'0 And as the war approaches, Sinclair
masses follow each other mindlessly to destruction, but
ready to die for a personal, free, chosen ideal (253), wh
exist, at least for Demian's disciples- this despite our
told that we cannot "choose" the wave of history we rid
who seeks destiny can have no "ideals" nor "models" (Vo
where Sinclair claims that Demian's clique are themselve
seekers. Hesse's thought is often crassly contradicto
lines.)
The dimension of freedom is primarily recaptured in De
tic and idealist subterfuge of inverting the external wor
self: "Unsere Seele [hat] immerzu teil an der bestandigen
Welt. Vielmehr ist es dieselbe unteilbare Gottheit, di
Natur t~itig ist. . . alles Gebildete in der Natur liegt
stammt aus der Seele, deren Wesen Ewigkeit ist, der
kennen, das sich uns aber zumeist als Liebeskraft un
fihlen gibt" (189-99). It is a telling sign that the wor
with all its connotations in German thought, rather th
or "destiny." The Romantic soul gains its dignity and fr
with nature and therefore not confronted by it as a chal
At the same time, a soul which is the pattern of nature
and thus unfixed-in its grounds, which infuses the
creation, must be a force subversive of rigid fate. (Only
Sinclair later speak of freedom and love [227]; talk of lo
the maternal figure of Frau Eva [235-36, 241], but this
motif is never integrated with the "coldness" of destiny
rebirth.) Humanity (Menschheit) too, like the soul, is a d
image no one knows, whose laws are nowhere written a
mined (237). (Despite this supposed ignorance of future m
is quite sure what "der Wille der Menschheit" is not
"heutige Gemeinschaften" [229].) In fact, what nature "w
can look different every day (229), a peculiarly indecisive
what Hesse intends it to be. Similarly irresolute is the "
seeks, which Frau Eva calls his "destiny," but which, sh
be replaced by another dream, which in turn Sinclair mu
(234). Perhaps she means that life's stages are each a sep
this would be an unusual use of the word.

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 531

Thus, Hesse's contradictory efforts to encour

iron bondage of destiny end up in the realm of
oneness with nature and the distant future. To be
discovered here is a highly subjective one. Accord
it is the only reality: "Es gibt keine Wirklichk
haben"; our images of the outside world are no
Leibniz' monads we live in isolated introspection b
with the world, so that in some ontological sense w
to its rude necessities. Demian's implicit stratagem
precedented in German thought. It is to gain a sp
self by rejecting the independent reality of the w

4.

Whether destiny be immutable or allow some moment of freedom, in

either case its seat, its center of action, could be grounded in practice either
in the self or in the external world. On this question Hesse vacillates too.
Heraclitus proclaimed that character is destiny, and he was echoed by
Novalis: "Schicksal und Gemuit sind Namen eines Begriffes, " a maxim thank-
fully copied by Sinclair under his sketch of Beatrice that, at the moment,
portrays his destiny (GD, III, 178). Friedrich Schiller, of course, outdoes
himself in such proverbs: "In deiner Brust sind deines Schicksals Sterne"
(Die Piccolomini), "Dein Schicksal ruht in deiner eigenen Brust' (Die
Jungfrau von Orleans), and Shakespeare had said it all already.
However, destiny and fate in their original conception (of which the above
psychological twist is a "modern" interpretation) are an external power, and
this is true also in Hesse's most frequent use of the word, in Demian and
elsewhere. But again not without contradiction.
There is a crucial difference in assuming our character or self to be the
prepotent agent in our lives, or in seeing our vast milieu and its history as
sovereign over our own feeble efforts. If destiny is in our character or self,
then we cannot lay the blame of our actions on ill-crossed stars; we cannot
abandon ourselves and our guilt to inevitable "processes." We are the clearly
marked author of our doings. We can claim that, our character being fated,
we cannot "help ourselves," but, from the social point of view, the source
of the fault is plain.
That Schicksal can also reside in external events, however, is made most
clear in Demian with the coming of the war, which in the fictional reality of
the plot, though not in its symbolism, cannot be held to emanate from
Sinclair's self. It is not correct to say with Herbert Reichert that Hesse
does not believe in outer destiny. 1 But destiny that does come from without
will slay us, while destiny from within strengthens us and makes us gods,
as does that outer destiny we willingly accept; this is the teaching of
"Zarathustras Wiederkehr" (GWV X, 473). Demian foresees the day when

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
532 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

he and his followers will be needed, as people willing and

das Schicksal ruft" (GD, III, 238), and he obviously means
social realm. "The will of the future," "the will of mank
also fateful forces of historical scope (229). External d
equated with nature itself; in "Zarathustras Wiederkehr, "
to Demian, Schicksal is the earth, rain, growth, pain--ra
of "the nature of things" (GW, X, 479). On a purely gram
and "destiny" are often cited in tandem but not as one,
is "seeking" its destiny must in some sense be ontologica
Destiny thus lurks without, surrounding us. But at oth
accept that it is really within, or even identical with our
major part of Demian that is where we are led to believe
seat is implicit both in the solitude in which one must c
(GD, III, 222) and in the series of self-absorbed human im
ical selves, in which destiny manifests itself for Sinclair
passages a phrase such as "coming to oneself' is equa
one's destiny" (220-21), or "wanting oneself' is "want
(222). In the related essay "Eigensinn" (1919), Hesse,
maxim once more so that we know what he means, as
only to those who have the courage to make their "self-
(Eigensinn) into their destiny (GW, X, 457). What we
being is what determines what happens to us. (But what
we are in our inmost being is not said.)
Hence our astonishment when Sinclair's intimate destin
an enormously destructive public spectacle, and Sinclair,
question and certainly without a glance at the political m
out as if on a metaphysical summer excursion. Nothing
about his conscription, about his patriotic fervor or his y
family pressures. Social pressures may have unleashed
which is the driving force of the story, but these are app
his readiness to comply with social expectations. The ide
that were coordinate with the war's political and econom
could not have motivated Sinclair to this totally unpredict
ing to Sinclair, "die Frage nach den auB(eren und pol
Krieges (blieb) nur Oberflache (GD, III, 254).
Even Sinclair seems a bit puzzled at the turn of events
one critic has balked entirely. Mark Boulby, otherwise s
the equation of "the self-discovery of the individual with th
Europe" (Boulby, 199) and attributes it to the spirit of ne

tionism, with which, he claims--incorrectly, I believe, in

"will of the future"- Hesse was "so little in sympathy
obliged to shield Hesse's pacifist reputation against an ap
of the war; accordingly, Rose says, the war symbolizes fo
ing of the world by the spirit (55). Even by Rose's view,

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 533

affirms the ultimate function of the war, if not it

kowski likewise justifies on a purely symbolic pla
sonal destiny with the outbreak of the war; he
rather than the cause" (101) of Sinclair's alienation
to live alone, Ziolkowski reasons, war must come
society. Of course in historical fact as well as in
opposite phenomenon occurred: the war tighte
every side.
Critics have thus tried to sweep Demian's war un
terned symbolic rugs- but it clearly won't stay
for Hesse, and it is a real event in Demian. The sa
tation of the real war's "meaning" (as a spiritual r
Demian (GD, III, 254), is to be found also in He
journalism, so it is not a symbolic invention peculia
novel. Hesse really saw the war that way, as a dest
"new humanity."
The problem of the logic of the novel's conclu
initially positing the theme of the search for t
rigorously identify the self with destiny; and then
of what is meant by destiny shifts in the course
comes to signify "world history"- thus logically f
with the infantry in pursuit of his true self (and
any decision or share of guilt). The shift of th
responsibility from self to history goes the more
focus on the emblem of the hawk breaking out of
a smooth tertium comparationis between Sincla
the outburst of societal tensions in the war.'"
The basically consenting attitude toward the war in Demian is not as
un-Hessean as it might seem. Though no extended point can be made of it
here, Hesse's position with regard to the war was more ambiguous than it
is often claimed to be - for which Demian itself would, indeed, be sufficient
evidence. Ralph Freedman's Hesse-biography has made the author's ambiva-
lence quite clear (165-80). In late 1914, for example, Hesse wrote: "Die
moralischen Werte des Krieges schditze ich im ganzen sehr hoch ein. Aus
dem bl6den Kapitalistenfrieden herausgerissen zu werden tat vielen gut,
grade auch Deutschland, und ftir einen echten Ktinstler, scheint mir, wird
ein Volk von Minnern wertvoller, das dem Tod gegentibergestanden hat und
die Unmittelbarkeit und Frische des Lagerlebens kennt" (GB, I, 255-56).
In late 1915 (over a year after the war began), an article in the Neue Ziurcher
Zeitung spoke, in Freedman's paraphrase, of "the warmth of togetherness
among people struck by an identical fate" (173), and in another article
pointedly disavowing pacifism he remarked that war, though terrible, "had
its place as a means to an end" (Freedman, 177).
Hesse was assuredly no warmonger, but in these years preceding the

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
534 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

composition of Demian (1915-16), his private opinions w

of the novel than previous critics have wished to admit.
community of fate suddenly exhilarates Sinclair, and th
an end, the agonizing but necessary rebirth of man's sp
werden will, muB eine Welt zerst6ren" (GD, III, 185),
sich erneuern. Es riecht nach Tod. Nichts Neues komm
In the context these can only be read as affirming the n
value of the very real First World War, whose incredib
unstable conclusion were matters of fact at the time of D
but a vindication of whose sacrifices would be reassuring
Germany (and probably elsewhere).
If one had cared to assert, at the time, that this was an
ogizing of the war, Hesse would have replied as late a
of his essay, "Ein Stiickchen Theologie") that those who
(fromm) - as opposed to those who are "rational" (vernii
to mythologize the world and because of that may n
enough: "[Der Fromme] mythologisiert die Welt und nim
tiber nicht ernst genug" (GW, X, 84). But, he would say,
"rational" spirits who start the wars, although the q
drawn fatally into the "Vernunft-Maschine" of war, shar
own death (GW X, 85). Basically, though, the "pious"
in all things to nature or a higher (not human) will, even if
achieves its purposes by frightful means (83).
We are certainly permitted to descend from this myt
inquire how Sinclair, who is ignorant of world events an
societies that generate them, could so rapidly join the m
although in the kindred "Zarathustras Wiederkehr" (
the "herd" for its greater readiness to die en masse than
darkness and cold of destiny (GW, X, 483-84).
Is it not possibly because Sinclair is not allowed to "want
cannot fill up this empty concept, its pure necessity, w
feelings and needs; because he lacks any touchstone to
his destiny? All early indications of meaning in his per
long since faded by the end- all family attachments, no
his fascination with the "dark world, " his spark of libido
What he apparently finally wants is to take refuge in a
does not oblige him to want any specific thing, to rescue
that may be) from his empirical self, its conflicts, challen
How will we know such an empty, lonely destiny when
Somehow, Sinclair himself can "recognize" unfailingly h
new avatar. But it is a logical puzzle how we may gain suc
before we live, of what our fate must be, so that alone
sizes - we can find our way along an unwavering course a
flights into those petty "'Aufgaben,' die der Tag und da

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 535

hat" (GW, X, 483), tasks that deflect us from th

We can have no ideals or models to guide us; we
past experience of satisfied wants and rewarding
This our "pure" fate must be completely random
and hence in some sense not our fate. This is wh
ontologically precedes the self.:
Since Sinclair can want nothing but abstract
"himself'"- which is a complex of natural desi
ments-so that, in this state of receptive passiv
own engagement upon him in the form of the
accept the engagement of daily activity, Sinclair r
(When Demian appeared in 1919, Thomas Mann, w
its fervent reception with that of Werther.) We
loses, an enlivening sense of oneness with nat
sustaining oneness with fate beyond the tormen
can draw his emotional support from a world of f
The very idea of "community" appears negative
league (Bund) of those who bear the mark of Cai
that is contrary to the contemporary emphasis by
community (Gemeinschaft) as opposed to society
as found in prewar Germany, Demian opines, i
"Abladen des Schicksals und Flucht in warme H
spite - or because of? - his alienation from the h
enough to become a Lieutenant in the Reserves, 2
kehr" confirms expressly that "Einsamkeit ist der
sal den Menschen zu sich selber fiihren will" (GW
destiny one must abjure mother, homeland, nati
community (483). According to Sinclair's guide
das Schicksal will, der hat weder Vorbilder noch
nichts Tr6stliches hat er! . . . Er darf auch nicht
nicht Mirtyrer sein wollen. Es ist nicht ausz
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine, for mother, hom
exactly what is usually meant by destiny in any
This total isolation is tantamount to an abandonm
desire to find out all that one might be; in pract
catatonic state. Thus defined, destiny is actual
inner self. 14
Hesse knows this too- at other times. Despite his rhetoric of loneliness,
Hesse knows that we cannot flee with ourselves into a kind of cosmic space.
(Flight into mystical oneness with the earth, as in Siddhartha, is his more
plausible escape maneuver.) In an essay written during the war, he concedes:
"Aus Beziehungen zwischen mir und der Welt, den 'anderen,' besteht ja

einzig mein
is the seat of Leben" (GW,
the power X, 436).
of love, and We haverather
though seen that in Demianstated
half-heartedly the soul
as

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 536 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

a motif, and then not reinforced, the image of destiny p

Frau Eva is no longer so severe and socially isolating as
III, 233).
Of course, Hesse was by nature always at war with soc
whatever its politics. In 1933, despite his disgust with e
he could write: "ich habe also gegen das Dritte Reich kein
und Opposition als ich sie gegen jedes Reich, jeden Sta
ausdibung habe" (GW, X, 505). But in reality he had many
as inauspicious as his youth might seem in that regard,
tive, conscientious and respected member of society
destiny he depicts is the inner loneliness of his own
particular "self."
As a consequence of Hesse's identification of destiny a
the self in Demian is portrayed as being generally in so
degree which probably does not exist for nonfictional h
the social outcast, like Hesse, is, in the real world, locked
with the society that has wronged him, with family, ho
Sinclair, nor Hesse, nor any of his readers grew up like
as "pure" destiny precedes any self in Demian, so the
hanging in thin air.

5.

To restate the invalidating flaw in Hesse's notion of "destiny": he implicitly

assumes that we can "find" our destiny by a sort of desperate introspection,
by a vision of an archetype or in a single all-significant encounter with ...
what? Well, with "destiny"! His motto is: Destiny now. Destiny is the guardian
angel of our "self," and we must wrestle and overcome it in order to begin
to live.
Of course, Sinclair's instant destiny and the search for an absolute self
ontologically presuppose one another. By contrast, the destiny of an empirical
self, what it will be at its ultimate unfolding, is inaccessible to introspection
and, in fact, incomplete at any given stage of life. Only at life's end, by
retrospection, will destiny have been fully revealed--and then not auto-
matically, like the unfolding of what was always in the bud, but often as the
final picture-frame in a suddenly severed film. And prior to that final and
fixating frame, what we have followed was an unresolved confrontation of
self and the world, or, in the better case, their useful collaboration.
J. G. Herder had noted, even in a prepsychological age, how impossible
it is to focus on a clear image of the true self. "Wir gehen mit einem zwar
lebendigen, aber verworrenen Bewu8tsein unser selbst wie im Traum ein-
her" (Nohl, 49). And Goethe, whom we could probably not accuse of fearing
to face himself, certainly not at the age of eighty, questions the whole notion
of self-knowledge:

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 537

Man hat zu allen Zeiten gesagt und wiederh

solle trachten, sich selber zu kennen. Dies ist ein
Forderung, der bis jetzt niemand geniiget ha
auch eigentlich niemand genuigen soll. Der Men
allem seinem Sinnen und Trachten aufs Auler
sen, auf die Welt um ihn her, und er hat zu tu
insoweit zu kennen und sich insoweit dienstbar z
als er es zu seinen Zwecken bedarf. Von sich selber wei3
er blo3, wenn er genielt oder leidet, und so wird er auch
bloB durch Leiden und Freuden uiber sich belehrt, was er
zu suchen oder zu meiden hat. Ubrigens aber ist der
Mensch ein dunkeles Wesen, er weil3 nicht, woher er
kommt, noch wohin er geht, er wei3 wenig von der Welt
und am wenigsten von sich selber. Ich kenne mich auch
nicht, und Gott soil mich auch davor behuiten. (Eckermann,
I, 335; 10 April 1829)

In Hesse's later novels the sought-for self no longer appears in equation

with destiny. Instead, evolving what in Demian remained an essentially
aborted feminine symbol (Frau Eva), Steppenwolf presents Jung's idea of
the anima in the figure of Hermine, as a symbol of Harry Haller's soul,
which he must learn to love before he can lay it to rest (through the symbolic
murder of Hermine) in order, selflessly, to be reborn in a less riven person-
ality. Harry is, in a sense, fated to do this (Hermine predicts in advance
what will happen), but his relation to his soul becomes at least one of
progressive acquaintance and love. The search for the "mother," the soulful
complement of intellect, is the variant offered in Narcissus and Goldmund,
and here the quest is pursued through a more or less real career of creative
activity. The earlier Siddhartha also involved a female figure, Kamala, a
rather more realistic agent of earthly love, like Maria in Steppenwolf, but
here the search does not lead to an anima or Magna Mater as goal, but to
a mystical union with the All. The hero ends quietistically but not as a pawn
of fate. The Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game overcome the
anguish of individuation through the ideal of service to a community that
has specific spiritual goals, rather than seeing service as "readiness" for a
destiny which is empty determinacy.
Although Hesse's theoretical expressions of fatalism continue long after
these thematic changes assert themselves-as we saw, in 1932 he wrote
in "Ein Stuickchen Theologie": "Wir regieren uns selbst nicht, sondern
werden regiert"-he must have been aware that, taken literally, and not
just dispensed hieratically as self-absolution of guilt, a belief in "fate" was
incompatible with the progressive achievement of "self, " and was, in the all
too pressing reality of things, a social danger. In a letter of 1944, surrounded
by another major war, Hesse himself implicitly retracted most of what the
conclusion of Demian implies, with its league of Cainites ready to serve an
unnamed destiny as a realization of self. Replying to a correspondent apropos
a quotation from Ernst Jiinger, Hesse wrote:

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 538 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Fall 1985

Und charakteristisch in Ihrem Zitat scheint mir besonde

der Schlu3 vom Schicksal, das keine pers6nliche Haft
machung kenne. So ist es: niemand ist schuldig, m
schieBt und brennt die Welt in Triimmer und ist dabei v
unschuldig, man ist "Exponent" oder "Faktor" oder irg
etwas Geistreiches aber kein Mensch, kein moralisc
unter Gott stehendes, ihm verantwortliches Wesen
gebe, deutsch gesprochen, keinen roten Pfennig daff
(G W, X, 534-44)

Notes

The most consistent attention to the fate-motif throughout Hesse is found in Boulby and
Reichert.
2 See also Hsia, 171-91.
See Naumann, Gehl, Nohl, Baden, Miller-Freienfels.
' Epistolae morales, 107, 11.
' According to Gehl, an old Nordic word for "fate," plural in form, has a singular form meaning
"character" (193).
6 In his "Kurzgefa8ter Lebenslauf' (GS, IV, 480), Hesse reports that, until a vital transfor-
mation of his life began, he felt in these years that his destiny was an "unselig" one which
he cursed.
7 Odes, II, 10.
8 Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1957), VII, 497; quoted
from Ziolkowski, 106.
9 In "Zarathustras Wiederkehr" Hesse talks of one's responsibility to his destiny, which in the
context sounds like a personal commitment to an historically assigned task, but which at
least implies an element of free collaboration with destiny (GW X, 482).
10 But the story "Klein und Wagner" (1919) employs the image of "letting oneself fall" to indicate
the acceptance of one's fate (GD, III, 550).
n Reichert, 44. In "Der Weg der Liebe" Hesse hopes to see the "deserved" Schicksal of
Germany's defeat transformed into value and future (GW X, 446). Here Schicksal is in the
common, loose sense of a critical situation to be coped with, but it is an external situation.
We find frequent contemporary references to external "blows of fate," or "evil" or "wild
destinies," where the plural form foregrounds the sense: "critical total circumstances of a
person's life."
12 For Carl Jung, too, in 1931, "the upheaval of our world and the upheaval in consciousness
are one in the same" (211). But Jung may mean no more than that changes in collective
social consciousness parallel changes in social reality, and probably precede them. When
Hesse maintains that the war, as the birth of a "new humanity," stems from individuals'
search for the true self, he is making a far more unprovable claim, and on the face of it a
very dangerous one.
13 This precedence of destiny over self is implicit when Hesse's Zarathustra says that what
makes him Zarathustra is having recognized Zarathustra's destiny and that, in general, destiny
"soll dich zu dir machen" (GW X, 473).
14 The loneliness of the search for the authentic self, its apparent ignoring of society, recalls
Ralf Dahrendorf's discussion of the role of public and private virtues in German life. The
former are modes of behavior that tend to eliminate social friction; the latter, with their
emphasis on self-perfection, profundity and being truthful, were traditionally most prized in
Germany. In a realm of private virtues truthfulness is regarded, "in contrast to the demands
of society, as a search for an invisible truth [i.e. Sinclair's true self] ... Indeed, the person-
ality of man proves itself by not requiring others at all" (287). But, reflects Dahrendorf, "the
virus of inhumanity links up with the absence of public virtues. Both document the same
retarded development of civilization. The unreflected readiness to accept as 'nature' or 'fate'
even what is capable of being changed by man, indeed, to taboo many changes of 'nature'
as well as the struggle against 'fate,' leads to the abandonment of the weak as it does to

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEWTON: Hesse's Demian 539

the humble acceptance of suffering and the renunciation o

civilized existence" (92-93). Sinclair's rather brusque and unhel
boy Knauer, to whom he offers no other solace than a refer
seem to be an example of this attitude (GD, III, 210).

Works Cited

Baden, Hans Jiirgen. Mensch und Schicksal. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1950.

Boulby, Mark. HermannHesse. His MindandHisArt. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1967.
Buber, Martin. Between Man and Man. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
Cassirer, Ernst. The Myth of the State. New Haven: Yale UP, 1936.
Dahrendorf, Ralf. Society and Democracy in Germany. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1969.
Eckermann, Johann Peter. Gesprdche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens, 2 vols.
Basel: Verlag Birkhiuser, 1945.
Freedman, Ralph. Hermann Hesse. Pilgrim of Crisis. A Biography. New York: Pantheon Books,
1978.
Gehl, Walther. DergermanischeSchicksalsglaube. Berlin: Junker und Diinnhaupt Verlag, 1939.
Hesse, Hermann. Gesammelte Briefe, 3 vols. Eds. Ursula and Volker Michels, Heiner Hesse.
Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, I (1973), II (1979), III (1982).
. Gesammelte Dichtungen, 6 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1952.
_ Gesammelte Schriften, 7 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1957.
. Gesammelte Werke, 12 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970.
Hsia, Adrian, ed. Hermann Hesse im Spiegel der zeitgen6ssischen Kritik. Bern: Francke Verlag
1975.
Jung, Carl Gustav. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich,
1933.
Laotse. Tao Teh Ching. The Wisdom of China and India. Ed. Lin Yutang. New York: Random
House, 1942.
Mileck, Joseph. Hermann Hesse. Life and Art. Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.
Miiller-Freienfels, Richard. Schicksal und Zufall. Miinchen/Berlin: Wissenschaftliche Editions
gesellschaft, 1949.
Naumann, Hans. Germanischer Schicksalsglaube. Jena: E. Diederichs, 1934.
Nohl, Hermann. Charakter und Schicksal. Eine pddagogische Menschenkunde. Frankfurt am
Main: G. Schulte-Bulmke, 1947.
Reichert, Herbert W. The Impact of Nietzsche on Hermann Hesse. Mt. Pleasant, Mich.: The
Enigma Press, 1972.
Rose, Ernst. Faith from the Abyss. Hermann Hesse's Way from Romanticism to Modernity. New
York: New York UP, 1965.
Ross, Ralph. Symbols and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962.
Sammons, Jeffrey L. "The Germanization of American Youth." Yale Review 59 (1969-70): 343-55.
Unseld, Siegfried, ed. Hermann Hesse. Eine Werkgeschichte. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 1973.
Vondung, Klaus. "Geschichte als Weltgericht. Genesis und Degradation einer Symbolik." Kriegs-
erlebnis. Der erste Weltkrieg in der literarischen Gestaltung und symbolischen Deutung der
Nationen. Ed. Klaus Vondung. G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980. 62-84.
Ziolkowski, Theodore. The Novels of Hermann Hesse. A Study in Theme and Structure. Prince-
ton: Princeton UP, 1965.

This content downloaded from

79.244.85.131 on Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:10:34 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms