Demian_Compared_to_the_Tempest

Sinclair’s world vs. Miranda’s world Jake Withnell World lit paper/2a p.6 Word count: 1179 Although Hermann Hesse’s Demian and William Shakespeare’s The Tempest are very different forms of literature, they have some elements and ideas in common. In both literary works, the lie of a young person is influenced and changed by their environment and experiences. Demian, Which is a realistic novel about everyday life, is set in Germany and covers the ten years prior to World War I. The story is told from the point of view of the main character Emil Sinclair. In the story, he is looking back at his childhood and explaining about the experiences and people that helped him develop into the person he has become. The Tempest, a mysterious and magical romantic fantasy, takes place on a fictional island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea during the Renaissance Period. The action unfolds in real time over the period of a few days. Prospero, the main character, uses white magical powers to direct the action in the play. Shakespeare wrote the play to be performed before an audience, and its purpose is to entertain. The characters converse between themselves or speak directly to the audience. The titles of both works express important elements in their story lines. The character Demian plays an important role in Sinclair’s growth as an individual. Prospero conjures up a big storm, or tempest, to bring the characters to the island to participate in the tale. In Demian, Hermann Hesse traces the difficult journey of a young man facing the pressures of society to conform and the obstacles of family, religion, and school that he faces in the quest for discovering his inner self or personal identity. Sinclair is influenced by a number of different individuals on his journey to self-discovery. Through his interaction with these “mentors”, Sinclair experiences both the light and dark sides of society. Hesse implies in his work that both dark and light forces are necessary in the world and must co exist equally. For example, the God Abraxas is described as being both God and the Devil in one entity. The union of the godly and the devilish elements of Sinclair’s experiences help him along the path to discovering himself. Demian, Sinclair’s childhood friend and mentor, is the first person to set him off on his quest and influences him deeply along the way. During this journey, Beck and Beatrice, who represent the dark and the light sides of German society, also influence him. Then Sinclair meets a young man named Pitorius, who mentors him to look inside himself for spiritual guidance. He explains that people are not really human until they understand the inner significance of learning and knowledge. According to Hesse’s philosophy all people have the potential to become human, but they can only achieve this level when they finally understand and accept their inner selves. As Sinclair becomes a more independent thinker, he “peels off layers of skin, breaks egg shells, and lifts his head a little higher, a little more freely, and his yellow bird pushes its beautiful raptor’s head out of the shattered shell of the terrestrial globe.” The bird hatching symbolizes the fact that Sinclair has finally reached a new level of self-realization. He continues to grow when he goes off to the university and is reunited with Demian his mother Eva, and their friends. At the end of the story he becomes an independent individual who understands his inner self. The story line in The Tempest centers on the experiences of the main character Prospero and his young daughter Miranda. He had been duke of Miln and allowed his dukedom to be taken over by his brother Antonio with the help of Alonso, the Duke of Naples. Prospero and Miranda, his three-year-old daughter, are set adrift in a boat and finally land on an island where they live in a cave. This evil or dark act starts a chain of events that will end the play. They are stranded there for twelve years, and at the start of the play Miranda is fifteen years old. She is innocent, has never seen another woman, and ha no knowledge of another human being except for her father. Unlike Sinclair, she has been sealed off from the real world. Miranda has had no experiences or interaction with other people to help her grow and develop as an individual. Prospero provides her only educational and spiritual experiences, and his only true goal for her is that she remains pure and chaste. At the beginning of the play she is gentle, passive, and meek, but shows signs of being generous and compassionate. The only other creatures she comes into contact with during their first twelve years of exile are Caliban and Aerial. Caliban is half monster creature that is the son of the witch, who had previously ruled the island, and the Devil. He represents the dark side of Miranda’s early experiences in life. Even though she had been kind to him and tried to teach him to speak their language, he attempts to assault her. She shows unusual independence and strength in the play when she rebukes him for his light attitude about trying to rape her when she had been so kind to him. Although Miranda is naive, she demonstrates signs of growing into a more mature individual when she is willing to talk about her sexuality in this situation. She also experiences a good influence from Aerial, an airy spirit, who Prospero has rescued from a witch’s spell. Prospero holds Caliban and Aerial under his magical powers and instructs them to carry out the actions in the play. He causes a ship full of enemies to shipwreck off the island. Then he orchestrates the meeting of Ferdinand, the son of the King of Maples, and Miranda. He is the first man she has seen, other than her father, and they fall in love at first sight. In a second instance of showing some personal initiative and courage, she asks Ferdinand to marry her stating, “I am your wife, if you marry me: if not I die your maid.” When the other shipwrecked individuals finally reach the cave, after being led around the island by Caliban and Aerial, King Alfonso gives his blessing to the marriage. In the final scene Prospero vows to lay aside his magical powers and return to Milan With Ferdinand and Miranda. These two literary works contrast the experiences of two young teens as they are growing up in very different environments. In the novel Demian, the young reader can identify with Sinclair’s experiences growing up and wonder if they will fully develop as an individual and discover their inner self. The ending of The Tempest makes the reader hope that Miranda will continue to grow as an individual once she journeys back to civilization. Hopefully once there, like Sinclair, she will have the opportunity to have a variety of experiences and interact with different people who will help her grow as an individual and discover her inner self.