Demian

Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth is a bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919; a prologue was added in 1960. Demian was first published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair", the name of the narrator of the story, but Hesse was later revealed to be the author. The novel was written in just three weeks. Emil Sinclair is a young boy who was raised in a bourgeois home described as a Scheinwelt, "Scheinwelt" being a play on wo... more

Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth is a bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919; a prologue was added in 1960. Demian was first published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair", the name of the narrator of the story, but Hesse was later revealed to be the author. The novel was written in just three weeks. Emil Sinclair is a young boy who was raised in a bourgeois home described as a Scheinwelt, "Scheinwelt" being a play on words and means world of light as well as world of illusion. Through the novel, accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate Max Demian, he descends from and revolts against the superficial ideals of this world and eventually awakens into a realization of self. A major underlying theme of this novel is opposing forces and the idea that both are necessary. The novel references concepts of Gnosticism, particularly the god Abraxas, and shows the influence of Carl Jung's psychology. Hesse said the novel was a story of Jungian individuation,... less