The Importance of Childhood in Steppenwolf
Upon reading Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, one cannot help noticing its large number of references to childhood. Youth, or a "childlike" state, is mentioned in the Treatise, in connection with Dionysian pleasures, in reference to Hermine, and in multiple other contexts. The ubiquity of this motif can be explained by the deep symbolic importance of childhood to Steppenwolf's protagonist, Harry Haller. Although his own young life appears to have been rather joyless, Harry holds up in his mind an ideal childhood to which he seeks, in various ways, to return. "Childhood," to Haller, embodies certain qualities he presently lacks: escape from the seriousness of the world, the treatment of life with eagerness and joyful abandon, and indiscriminate love. Thinking of Harry's wish for a "return to innocence" helps readers of Steppenwolf better understand some of the protagonist's motivations and his reactions to the people around him. It helps explain, among other things, his gravitation toward the "All girls are yours" door in the magic theater, his growing eagerness for Dionysian pleasures, and his attraction to Hermine (and similarly, to Maria and Pablo.) Through all of these venues, Harry finds the temporary respite he is looking for; therefore, to him, issues of love and pleasure (in many instances, sexual pleasure) are inexorably entangled with the idea of childhood.
The presence of the "All girls are yours" scene is perhaps the most direct manifestation of Harry Haller's mental connection between love and youth. It is interesting to note how many other scenes could have stood in place of this one. Even if he had limited himself to tableaux of "young Harry," Haller could...
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...into a complete picture of his soul. Thus, readers may certainly approach Harry's psyche from the "child" angle when trying to rationalize his thoughts and actions; they must simply realize, when considering this side of Harry, that there are other facets to his personality, and think of this interpretation as just one step toward understanding him as a whole.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Flaxman, Seymour L. "Der Steppenwolf: Hesse's Portrait of the Intellectual."
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon Gunton. Vol. 17. Detroit:
Gale Research Company, 1981. 196-7.
Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf. Trans. Joseph Mileck. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1929.
Ziolkowski, Theodore. from The Novels of Herman Hesse. Contemporary
Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Research
Company, 1973. 145-6.
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Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a masterfully written short story about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes his life to his family and work, for nothing in return. Only when he is transformed into a helpless beetle does he begin to develop a self-identity and understanding of the relationships around him. The underlying theme of The Metamorphosis is an existential view that says any given choice will govern the later course of a person's life, and that the person has ultimate will over making choices. In this case, Gregor?s lack of identity has caused him to be numb to everything around him.
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Certain elements in children’s literature make me feel nostalgic for the past when I lived a more carefree and perhaps careless lifestyle with my eyes and ears wide open. Now, a college student and adult struggling to juggle school, work, and future career planning, I often forget the simple things that brought me pleasure when I was a child. The stresses I have encountered while growing older—taking on added responsibilities and accumulating prejudices—have clouded my childlike, innocent, and fun view of life. This childishness, which was reawakened by reading Charlotte’s Web,“Goblin Market,” and The Secret Garden ,is something I’d like to bring to life again. I miss it, and I’m tired of repressing it just so I can appear to be a mature adult. There are some characteristics in me that were rooted in childhood and still survive to express themselves today, like my love for animals. But these are few. The majority of things I learned, believed, and valued as a child have escaped me and perhaps lie dormant somewhere in my subconscious. My sense of beauty and healing power in nature has diminished since I moved away from my rural childhood home, as well as my relationships with my sisters, who were more easy to get along with when I was young. I regret losing these parts of me with age, and after reading these books I wish more than ever to bring them back, because they did form who I was as a child—and everything stems from childhood. This is when I was my real self, naive at heart and innocent at play.
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After Gregor wakes up and realizes that he has been transformed into a bug, he starts to worry about how he will go to work in order to provide for his family. He debates about calling in sick as he thinks ”The chief himself would be sure
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Gregor is dehumanized by his boss in the way that he treats him at work. Gregor’s presence at work proved more important to his boss than his well being. When
Popular contemporary author, George R.R. Martin, once said: “Summer will end soon, and my childhood as well.” The six poems discussed explore the different aspects of childhood, and portray childhood as a brief but magical ‘summer’-time, especially Piano and Hide and Seek, which emphasize this by alluding to the constrictions of adulthood and the warmth of juvenescence. While Gareth Owen’s Salford Road avoids any portrayals of adulthood, it might map the progression of childhood to adulthood like Vernon Scannell’s Hide and Seek, and thus accentuate the carefree lives that children lead. Meanwhile, Half Past Two by UA Fanthorpe and Houses by Robert Hull focus instead on the freedom and creativity childhood brings, and therefore presents the theme of childhood in a more playful light reminiscent of Martin’s summer. Finally, Soap Suds by Louis Macniece brings the briefness of childhood into focus, much like summer in the span of a year.
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There are proponents of the debate that childhood is disappearing which will be discussed in this section which include Postman (1983), Elkind (1981) and Palmer (2006). In considering these points of view which are mostly American, one must firstly set in context what is meant by the disappearance or erosion of childhood. This key debate centres on Postman (1983) who wrote “The disappearance of childhood” which is a contentious book about how childhood as a social category which is separate from adulthood is eroding. He defines a point where childhood came into existence, which was treated as a special phase in the middle ages based on the work of Aries in his book “Centuries of childhood” (1962, cited in Postman 1983). According to Postman, a major influence on how childhood was perceived differently to adulthood was the invention of the printing press and literacy in the mid sixteenth century. That is to say children had to learn to read before the secrets of adulthood in particular sex and violence was available...
Abstract In this essay, I intend to explain how everyday lives challenge the construction of childhood as a time of innocence. In the main part of my assignment, I will explain the idea of innocence, which started with Romantic discourse of childhood and how it shaped our view of childhood. I will also look at two contradictory ideas of childhood innocence and guilt in Blake’s poems and extract from Mayhew’s book. Next, I will compare the images of innocence in TV adverts and Barnardo’s posters. After that, I will look at the representation of childhood innocence in sexuality and criminality, and the roles the age and the gender play in portraying children as innocent or guilty. I will include some cross-cultural and contemporary descriptions on the key topics. At the end of my assignment, I will summarize the main points of the arguments.