Hesse was an internationalist in the tradition of such great
personalities as Goethe and Tolstoy, He waa in a company of very few
intellectuals (such as Rolland) who thought about peace on a world,
rather than a national, level. Here is another reason that Hesse was
ahead of his time and a reason for his contemporary popularity among the young.
In this section an attempt has been made to look at the areas of interpersonal relations and to observe man as a social creature,
especially in a middle-class society. Only on occasion does Hesse
address himself directly to social institutions, but he alludes indi
rectly to the values and conventions of the bourgeois. He comments
on conformity and compromise, mechanization and technology, the educa
tional system, and the issue of war and peace. Hesse is not a system
atic critic who argues his case. He would periodically write public letters in the newspapers or express his views in his published work. Only segments of his thoughts and feelings, therefore, have come to our attention.
Men as ^ Religious Being
The third section of this chapter will be devoted to man as a religious being in the concept of "the human" in Hesse's work. The human predicament of sin, suffering, and death will be discussed,
along with the content of religious experience. Hesse's understanding
of the nature of God and the meaning of salvation will conclude this
section. Hesse's grasp of the human situation starts with the reality
of man and does not postulate a God who explains man.
Man can be less than man, and never is he as conscious of this
writer with a German Pietist background would address himself to man
the sinner, Hesse does not ignore this factor; early in his work this
Christian doctrine appears, "Natural man is unpredictable, opaque,
dangerous, like a torrent cascading out of uncharted mountains. At the
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start, his soul is a jungle without paths or order," Man is not ba
sically good. In fact, the scales lean toward his propensity for evil.
When man is reflective and meditates, i.e., when he is honest
with himself, he realizes a sense of sin, Hesse attempts to deny this
awareness in such a lovable character as Knulp. When a mishap occurs
in Knulp*s love life, and is the cause of his wandering without direc tion, Hesse has God intervene and accept Knulp*s wasted life by bless ing it, God justifies what appears to be a meaningless existence by saying Knulp may not have done anything with his life; yet because of what ha is (childlike, foolish, and happy) he brings these characteris tics into the lives of people with whom he lives even temporarily.
Knulp*3 spontaneity and his naturally passive disposition make' him
enjoyable company. He does not bring with him a sense of dread or sin.
It was in the experience of psychoanalysis that Hesse came to recognize the depth of evil and ugliness that is part of being human. He could not avoid this reality, and he began to articulate its presence
in his work that followed his analysis. Man's irrationality and the
"shadow"side of his personhood began to evidence itself. Analysis made him more awars of the role of the subconscious in artistic creation . . . consequently, a total picture of man emerged, not the simple one sided rational man of his earlier work.^*
Demian is the first novel after analysis and reveals explicitly
the consciousness Hesse now has for sin. The Kroner episode portrays
Sinclair— in fact, he calls Kromer Satan. Sinning requires a conscious
act. An act of disobedience can be seen in Demian. For example,
Sinclair goes against his parents* traditions and values and shows the willfulness and ease with which an individual enters the sinful life. But what is important in Demian is Hesse*s belief that sin is imposed on human nature from circumstances that create the possibility for
betrayal of ons*s true or best self. Without the possibility of sin,
man would live only in a state of innocence and in ignorance of the world. Sin is an aid in the development of one's consciousness of a full life. A guilty conscience serves man in this way.
Sin is seen as essential, and Hesse is able to portray its hold over man. In his short story, "A Child's Heart," a quotation deveals; "Again and again I rose up, ardent and devout, prepared to dedicate myself to God and to tread the ideal, pure, noble path toward the heights, to practice virtue, to suffer evil silently, to help others. And alas, again and again it remained only a beginning, an attempt, a
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brief fluttering flight!" Sin is the experience of all but heroes
and saints, and even those rare elect seem possessed by their struggle against it.
Sin is misplaced love. It is self-love. To be human means to
have to cope with this tendency to love oneself unreservedly. In "A Man
by the Name of Ziegler" Hesse says, "Like every other man, he regarded himself as an individual, though in reality he was only a specimen, and like other men he regarded himself and his life as the center of the w o r l d . S i n is placing oneself at the center of one's world. When
this happens one experiences disorder and dissension. Friedrich Klein
is aware of two Friedrich Kleins within; " . . . one visible and one
97 secret, a civil servant and a criminal, a paterfamilias and a murderer."
Disintegration and chaos can result when man loses his innocence and faces the reality of sin.
Sin has to do with the will of man. In his early work Hesse
cannot reconcile his belief in the goodness of man with Pauline theology
concerning the sinful nature of man. He later comes to see the presence
of evil in the human heart but believes man is left alone to deal with
it. In Stsppenwolf Hermine says, "Oh, Harry, we have to grope through
so much dirt and senselessness, to reach home. And we have no one to
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