Harry may indeed have been sad at one point, and contemplating suicide, but that's not how the book ends. Read it, please. In the end he figures it all out for a finale that is very uplifting and positive.

Harry is forever doomed to fail.How can he lose his introspection and become as natural and simplistic as Pablo-who at the end of the novel is the wisest character of all.Harry's feelings of joy are transitory.I imagine he is doomed to repeat his cycle of misanthopism,and we are likely to find his type travelling from guest house to bedsit for eternity

I didnt understand Harry that way Pablo.I think he lost his human (irational,passional?) side when he killed Herminia , but I think she can live again.As the character Pablo said, Harry took all too seriously, but it was just a game, and in the end I think Harry understood that.He saw the "pieces" of his personality before him (like Nietzsche saw the" table of values").This could bring him a new life based on learning how to play this game called "life"...

Course, it's only my interpretation...anyway I dont know if it appears in your verison but Hermann said in a epilogue for Steppenwolf,grosso modo, that he left a message of life, not of despair in the end of the book...

Still in the desagreement section: I don't agree that Demian is weak.I guess the type of weakness that the people with the sign of Cain have is the weakness of the strong.I mean, the weakness that came out when you start to think for yourself, to look against all comon sense through values behind the surface (Nietzsche again :).So if Demian is "weak" its because he's actually strong (lol), he faces the darkness...By the way, how many people we met in our lives that appears to be strong, with their dogmatic, prejudicial opinions, but inside (when the crack appears) he just a little kid..The strong has to suffer(?)

I didnt forget my fave Characcter:One of my fav Hesse's character is the main character of the book Rosshalde (god,I forgot his name lol) beacause he's very human and almost seems to jump from the pages (lol), you know he's not specifically the wisest or the deppest guy in the (Hesse's) world but his will to face his problems and to find "somehting to cling to" even in a psychological hell, really got me.

By the way, Rosshalde is a romance written in the ,lets say, "romantic" part of the Hermann's books (before Demian) but I think, there is is something peculiar in it, it's not romantical like Knulp or Under The Wheels (that is the english name?) theres not death or something that reminds too much Goethe.So I guess it could be included in some way in the latest phase of the Hermann's work...what do you think?

gotama

Hi~ My favorite character of Hesse's novel is Givenrate .. Narziss., Demian..

All person has the their unique dream and self idea.
We can become a extraordinary Bird... I so blieve.. :)
The dream feels like milkiway frogrance to me...




Shoot for the star, even if you miss, you will land among the stars. :)

You can become a ExtraOrdiany Bird~
My web ID is Falcon330..
Falcon means a special bird, or fly me to the Dream space..

and 330 means, my friends's birthday.. = March, 30. :)
he named me the "falcon".. I and He like the hesse's Demian..

when I was a 10years old, I met the hesse first through Demian, at the public Library..
I was very joyful.. And I like hesse very much...
I read almost his books....

So Happy...

Shoot for the star, even if you miss, you will land among the stars. :)

Edited by SangYeonKim on 05/19/04 12:13 AM.

I love the character and book Knulp. Has anyone got an extra copy? I've seen and read it once. Now I can't find it! Why did I ever let it go? Knulp is a wanderer, like Goldmund, sort of, but he is older, perhaps what Goldmund was to become...??

to the poster who said Demian is weak.. I'm just wondering what are your arguments on that?

My favorite Hesse character is absolutly Peter Camenzind. When I read that book for the first time it was like I was reading about myself. I just love Hesse's books, he's such a great and talented writer!