Nationalism In Siddhartha

Jordan Cohen
May 15th, 2014
D Track Lopez
Intro Paragraph:
From 1914-1918, World War 1 was a war centered in Europe. Herman Hesse was a German-born writer who lived from 1877-1962. Hesse’s Siddhartha, arguably his most famous and most well written c book, was published just a few years after the conclusion of the War in 1922. Although there is such a large disparity between the peace of Siddhartha and the evil that stems from the War, Hesse uses one to teach us about the other, and visa-versa. He uses Siddhartha and his life to create ties to the war that he lived through while living in Germany, and as “a product of special religious awareness in its ritualistic and philosophical pattern, revaluing humanity and the primitive elements in human nature” (Misra, 222). Hesse uses the War as a way to question human nature, and becomes an access into the brains of readers worldwide.
Thesis:

Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha reflects 3 different phases of World War 1: the before, the during, and the aftermath.

Section #1: The Before
Body Paragraph #1: Nationalism

Herman Hesse uses Siddhartha to capture the gradually rising nationalism and other reasons for the war. In the beginning of the book, Siddhartha goes through a metamorphosis in which he changes his actions and beliefs in order to fit in with the Samanas. In a sense, he surrenders much of himself to the larger group. We also see this same phenomenon around the World War 1 period, when many citizens of different countries blindly followed the leaders of their societies. This makes Siddhartha, along with many European citizens, become people who they’re not. Hesse first develops the idea that Siddhartha starts out with all of the potential in the world. Ironically, he fa...

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...been developing at a rapid pace, suddenly, all of Europe’s arrogance and opinions clashed. Everybody turned on the rest of the world. With Hesse naming the book and the main character Siddhartha, I feel as if his fate was predetermined. He is using this concept to symbolize the fact that the world and our human nature was inevitable, nothing could have changed that. Whether it took a war, unification and peace, or just time passing by, our human nature was predetermined no matter what the series of events. Overall, I firmly believe that Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha was indicative of World War 1 in three different phases: the before, the during, and the aftermath.

Siddhartha really captures the year before

Closing: Even though there is such a dispartiy in peace of Siddhartha vs the evil of the war, Hesse uses one to teach us thigns about the other, and visa-versa