Becoming Failure In Herman Hesse's Siddhartha

Siddhartha, a novel written by Herman Hesse follows the life of a man named Siddhartha, showing the transformation of the man from a Brahmin's son to becoming a Ferryman. Siddhartha experiences failure along his path to inner peace and enlightenment, where he experiences the two extremes and finds his Middle Way. He begins as a son of a Brahman, then becoming a Samana, relying on self deprivation to achieve his happiness. He ventures to a town where he becomes a salesmen, where he grows rich and lives the life of over indulgence. Realizing the error of his ways, he leaves and becomes a Ferryman, living the life of neither self deprivation nor over indulgence, finding a balance between. In Siddhartha, Siddhartha realizes he needed to go through

Siddhartha grows tired of the Samana ways realizing the eldest, “is sixty years old and has not attained Nirvana. He will be seventy and eighty years old, and you and I, we will grow as old as he, and do exercise and fast and meditate, but we will not attain Nirvana, neither he nor we”(18). Siddhartha realizes he is not going to attain Nirvana, breaking the cycle of death and rebirth, by staying with the Samana traditions. Siddhartha has realized that the Samana ways have never led to Nirvana and will never lead to Nirvana, and he must move onto a new path. After the Samanas, Siddhartha moves into town where he meets a women named Kamala, and a man named Kamaswami. He becomes very wealthy and lives for 20 years the life of a rich man, gambling, drinking, and overindulging. The realization comes he was playing a game of Samsara, “A game for children, a game which was perhaps enjoyable played once, twice, ten times-but was it worth playing continually?”(84). The realization that he was playing a game, a game of misfortune with his life was powerful for Siddhartha. Siddhartha leaves the town and head to the woods where he makes it to a river, where he meets the