Bat-Ori answers “DEMIAN: Right now as a 17 year old i want...”

Escapewithbooks asked this question about Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend:

DEMIAN: Right now as a 17 year old i want to say my soul has been written here... and i have found many answers to my endless questions. I will always keep this with me... maybe not as guidance but so I can ease the loneliness. If only I could talk to Hermann Hesse, he knows what I know. So I want to know how many are alive: who has the Mark here?

Bat-Ori This is a story, not a biography. More than that, it's Hesse's manifesto of how a young man should develop in his early years. Demian is Emil's guardi…moreThis is a story, not a biography. More than that, it's Hesse's manifesto of how a young man should develop in his early years. Demian is Emil's guardian angel, leading him along the right path - which will eventually lead him to a spiritualized heterosexuality. Elsewhere in Hesse (eg 'Under the Arm') there's again this fantasy of 'clicking' with another boy - who then helps lead one through, without falling into the trap of gay sex. What it is is a working out of how Plato recommended young men should live. Nearer to Hesse's time, it was what Freud might have described as sublimation of the libido. Sadly, though, it doesn't work. Freud said it was 'very rare'. The idealisation of Max's mother as Eve is never going to work out as a kind of sex life, unless you're Narziss. You can fantasise about discovering my own Demian; but in real life you won't find someone chaste and unworldly as Hesse has made him. (less)

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