The Internal Conflict between the Body and the Soul in Hermann Hesse’s the Steppenwolf

Abstract

Hermann Hesse (2 July 1877-9 August 1962) was a German born Swiss poet, novelist and Painter. Hermann Hesse ‘s The Steppenwolf addresses division within the self and society , and the effects such divisions can have on an individual, such as loneliness, self-mutilation, and possible suicide. As the great deciding crisis of our civilization continues to explode, the wisdom of voices like Hermann Hesse’s wisdom like a dry but rich old red wine becomes ever rarer and ever more important. Hermann Hesse’s voice is particularly necessary because it speaks with deep sincerity of one of the key spiritual adventures of last hundred years, that of fusing together the best of the Western philosophical and mystery traditions with the highest understanding of unity and divine identity of the East.
The problems and oppertunities such as fusion of East and West arouses are explored with complex and laconic elegance in Hermann Hesse's great novel especially The Steppenwolf. In Hesse's novels, we meet Hermann Hesse the man in all his emotional intensity, fierce spiritual struggle and so experience most completely the inner turmoil. Hesse's novel The Steppenwolf radiates a secret, timeless knowledge of the mystery of cyclic change, the interconnection of the thousand things that comprise phenomenal reality, and the profound empty peace that bathes and underlines all life's fervid dramad, revealing just how deeply the discoveries of spirituality penetrated his soul.