Demian

Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend (in Spanish, Demian: History of the Youth of Emil Sinclair) is a novel by the German writer Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919, in the time after the First World War.

The work tells in first person the passage from childhood to maturity of the main character. Emil Sinclair is a boy who has spent his entire life in what he calls the Scheinwelt (dream world or world of light), but a lie leads him to expand his visions of the world and discover a enigmatic character, named Max Demian, who will take him along the paths of self-reasoning, destroying materialist paradigms that previously surrounded him.

The novel refers to and uses concepts of Gnosticism, particularly the demiurge (entity that, without being a creator, is the driving force of the universe, giving it movement) Abraxas, while showing the influence of Carl Jung's system of psychoanalysis. Admitted to a clinic in Sonnmatt, Hesse was psychoanalyzed by a disciple of Jung.

In his first edition, Hermann Hesse used the pseudonym 'Emil Sinclair', the name of the narrator and protagonist of the story, but Hesse later revealed himself to be the author.

The author

Hermann Karl Hesse, naturalized Swiss in May 1924.

Introduction to the work

The subtitle that accompanied the first editions of Demian —History of the Youth of Emil Sinclair— gradually disappeared in successive reissues and versions in other languages.

The novel was published in 1919, after the First World War ended. It had been written during the years of that war (its actual execution took him only three weeks), and it was the result of a deep existential crisis in Hesse, a crisis that would lead him to make a turn, not only in his progressive development as a writer., but in the journey of his strictly human path.

In Demian there resonate, although perhaps not perceptible to many readers, vibrant echoes of Hesse's reflections on his own tormented adolescence; of that time of searches, pain and suffering, the author declared that he had become aware with the writing of this novel, only about twenty years after it was published.

It is a work that reflects the spirit of the time and its notable cultural influences; This is how Nietzsche and psychoanalysis, especially Jungian psychoanalysis, reach it. In the depths of these spiritual aspects, one suspects the rigors of an unprecedented war, which Hesse, from a certain distance, experienced intensely, in its apocalyptic tones.

In Demian the recurring theme of polarity is present for the first time, which will be a constant in Hesse's work, including Siddhartha (1922). Nor should the traces or imprint of the author's religious training be omitted, which can be seen in the very frequent references to the Bible. All this was nothing more than a reflection of the firmly Christian education that Hesse had received in his childhood.

The work deals with the dialectic between "good" and "evil", the unconscious, instincts and culture. The work shows the values or concerns of adolescents when wanting to be accepted, leading them to choose options that do not favor them.

Characters

• Emil Sinclair: Emil, Émile or Sinclair is the protagonist of history; a young man confused and overwhelmed by the changes of adolescence that are debated by two antagonistic worlds which he himself defines as the "World of Light" and the "White World". Sinclair, during the beginning of history, lives in the "World of Light", but as the story progresses, and knows Max Demian, he enters fully into the "Dark World" triggering the events that are told throughout the novel in his interior as well as in the Outer World.
• Max Demian: one of the main characters in the story. A tall young man, forged and characterized as serene and calm. He arrives at Sinclair's school and becomes a friend of him.
• Beatrice: a tall, thin and slender young woman, who Sinclair finds in the park where she used to walk during the fall; this represents a break in history since it is the Platonic figure that Sinclair uses to redeem herself from the dissolute life in which she finds herself at that moment of the story, more exactly the 4th chapter, Called justly, "Beatrice".
• Pistorius: church organist with esoteric theories. Enter Sinclair in the Abraxas philosophy.
• Frau Eva: Demian's mother. Motherfucking, beloved ideal and goddess for Sinclair. Her relationship with her is symbolic, platonic, console, trainer and stimulant. Eva gives lessons of love to the protagonist through fables.
• Knauer: a classmate from Sinclair, who enters the story during the 6th chapter "The Fight of Jacob". This, he is a young man of a weak, thin and small look, of fine hair and reddish with a rare and disturbing behavior; Knauer is a boy somewhat disturbed by his sexuality, because, to "acquire" what he calls the "White Magic" wants to remain caste (and therefore "puro") for the rest of his life, although this overwhelms him and even upsets him.
• Alfons Beck: (Alfons or Alfonso Beck, depending on the translation) is a young man of eighteen years who goes to the same school the protagonist attends. A cheerful and jovial young man, who surprises Sinclair during his walk around the city and invites him to take a drink to a tavern, telling anecdotes about his love and sexual life, and almost from this moment on, will be when Sinclair begins to decay as a person, sinking in the life of the berries and drunkennesses.
• Franz Kromer: son of a local tailor. A young man of thirteen years, a drinker and a poor family, spoke as a factory worker.
• Abraxas: Symbolic divinity of gnosticism represents the duality of opposites; good and evil, light and darkness, masculine/feminine, integrated into one being.
• Lina: Servant of the family of the protagonist, Sinclair. This, while its participation in history is almost null, is the first example that Sinclair uses to explain its definition of the "World of Light" and the "West World".

Training novel

Demian is clearly what in the history of literature is called a Bildungsroman, a novel of formation, and this is because its purpose is the narrated spiritual evolution of a teenager going through the difficult years of his growth. The schoolboy Sinclair is cajoled by his bad partner, Franz Kromer, a tramp and braggart who acts like an experienced man: he spits on the ground and is made to obey. Sinclair, attracted by Kromer, deceives his parents, steals and falls down the slide of sin, but then, Demian appears, another classmate who expresses himself differently, a look between cold and mysterious, timeless that seems to come from a timeless past. Sinclair is attracted to Demian, after a lesson on Cain. Demian maintains that Cain belongs to a stronger race and it is the weak who have created a black legend. Demian frees Sinclair from Kromer's nefarious influence, tells him: "Kromer is tainted, we must get rid of him,", and since then, something has mysteriously happened between Sinclair and Demian, Kromer disappears.

The novel also addresses issues that concern religion. The God of Christians is considered very powerful, "but there should be a god who understood the Devil within himself and to whom there would be no reason to close our eyes when doing the most natural things in the world".

The novel is reflected mostly in his life and also in another person, first person and the "I" narrator is that of the protagonist, Emil Sinclair, who dwells on the details of the story of his own youth. The question of polarity, to which we already referred, will be present from the beginning. Thus, Sinclair, even though he was merely a child, will claim to have lived as if in two separate worlds. With opposite visions of life that strained his soul. On one side was the luminous and clear world of good, and on the other he felt darkness and evil. His long-awaited goal was to continually lead an exemplary life, marked by the exemplary and transparent images of his parents, but he could not help but feel the agitation - within himself - of inclinations that separated him from that cosmos, pushing him to the side. which, perhaps exaggeratedly, felt like "perdition". That attraction towards the dark may have been responsible for his approach, around the age of ten, to a boy named Kromer. A young man, more or less like him in chronological terms, evil, arrogant and somewhat "sadistic" that he seeks to subject you to his will. Sinclair is forced to endure repeated and atrocious episodes of moral violence and abuse.

On the other hand, Sinclair feels a platonic love for his beloved Beatrice, who "saves" of his instincts. At university, Sinclair meets the organist Pistorius, who speaks as an epigone of Jung and points out the role of the individual and collective unconscious. Likewise, he meets Demian's mother, Frau Eva, who shows him her portraits of her youth. Sinclair believes he sees in Eva the woman he would have wanted to love, "beloved face, man, mother, lover, friend."

With a soft and timid nature, the protagonist suggests that his soul would have been corrupted forever if he had not arrived, brought by the hand of destiny, the more than intelligent, profound and enigmatic Demian, a schoolmate who with his Inner strength, his maturity, his firm handsomeness that makes him appear like an older young man, immediately frees him from Kromer's disastrous influence. The perverse and arrogant stalker will take good account of Demian's iron personality, and will never bother Sinclair again. And it is from that moment, when this friendship is sealed with the youthful but mature friend at the same time, Sinclair begins the path of discovery of a new and somewhat mysterious side of life, overloaded with new symbols, fascinating and terrible at the same time. time. Little by little, Emil will delve deeper into his soul, into life, into his family (especially into the magical figure of the mother, Eva, his feminine ideal in visions and in reality).

War is declared, Sinclair is wounded and on the stretcher next to him, he recognizes Demián, who tells him: "When you need me, like in the case of Kromer, don't call me, listen to yourself yourself and you will notice that I am inside you. Sinclair wakes up and on that stretcher there is a stranger.

Repercussion of the work

When it was published for the first time in 1919, Demian deeply moved the world of youth, which came out strongly stunned and tormented, with all kinds of disorientations, from the First World War. In this way, the palpable success of the book was enormous, to the point that the writer Thomas Mann, a contemporary of Hesse, flatly said that it was a small masterpiece. The novel immediately became worthy of the 'Fontane' prize, reserved for beginning writers... The misunderstanding had arisen because Hesse published Demian under a pseudonym, as Emil Sinclair. Once the mistake was clarified, Hesse restored the agreed prize. It is worth noting that the name of the protagonist and the pseudonym were taken from a friend of the German poet Friederich Hölderlin, for whom Hesse felt devotion. Hölderlin's friend's name was Isaac von Sinclair.

In popular culture

On September 4, 2016, the popular South Korean band BTS published the first of seven short films, titled "Begin", in which they used textual quotes from the book as well as different references. Finally, on October 9 of the same year, they released the music video for "Blood, Sweat & Tears", which also included quotes and references to the book.

The Uruguayan band, El Cuarteto de Nos released a song titled "Yendo a la casa de Damián" on their album Raro, from 2006. In the last part of the lyrics, Hesse is mentioned. Roberto Musso, the band's singer, explained that the name of the song also refers to the title of the book, with Damián being the Spanish version of Demian.

Spanish translations

• DemianCome on. Luis López-Ballesteros, Cenit, Madrid 1930
• DemianCome on. Genoveva Dieterich, Alianza, Madrid 1967