Siddhartha, the novel by Hermann Hesse is what can be included as one of the epitomes of allegorical literature. This wondrous novel is focused on the tribulations of Siddhartha through his quest for inner peace. He started out as a young Brahmin’s son always thirsting for more intellect and perspective in his life and from there on he endured many transitions. Siddhartha let himself experience all forms of life in his society. He unhesitatingly learned more about how different people lived by stepping into their shoes.
He gained the vast varieties of intellect and perspective that he had longed for through his diversity, and he hrewdly applied it to compose his accurate philosophies of everyday life. Siddhartha’s character exemplifies the insatiable feeling that everybody harbors. He stood for a unity of individuals. He stood for their thirst, and most importantly he stood for their ultimate quench; He stood for the insatiable feelings that all people have and need to eventually fill. As the Brahmin’s son, Siddhartha could not contain himself.
He was restless and felt that he had learned all he had to learn amongst his elders, and he was right. He chose to follow another path in life, a path that would show him another part of how people in his world lived. Siddhartha did not allow himself to stick to something that he could not feel to be right, thus he could not stay and worship the gods his father worshipped. He, as discontent people long for, set out to search for the internal happiness that he had not redeemed yet. As Siddhartha wandered through his multiple phases in life, he learned overwhelming aspects.
He seemed so above the common people, yet he discovered that he became more and more like them. He too had uncontrollable feelings of emptiness. The next life that Siddhartha embarked on was his life with the Samanas. In those years, he learned to try to control himself, and he learned to feel spite towards materialistic people. He was given a different view of life, but he still was discontented. He felt he had learned enough of spiritual discipline and again changed his path in life. Siddhartha had heard of the Great Buddha as if he was a true and worthy idol.
He set out to learn his teachings with total anxiety, but he soon learned that it was not what he wanted to pursue. “You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation though teachings… (p27)” That is why I am going on my way-not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and reach my goal alone-or die. “(p28) The next step in Siddhartha’s discovery was becoming a free man. He wandered into a town as opposed to the forest he had dwelled in for many years and faced the corruptions of the town life.
First he experienced immense lust, then he tasted greed and felt hate which ultimately brought him back to feeling lost. “His heart was so full of misery, he felt the could no longer endure it. He was full of a nausea which overpowered him ike a distasteful wine, or music that was too sweet and superficial, or like the too sweet smile of the dancer or the too sweet perfume of their hair and breasts. But above all he was nauseated with himself, with his perfumed hair, with the smell of wine from his mouth, with the soft, flabby appearance of his skin.
Like one who has eaten and drunk too much and vomits painfully he then feels better, so did the restless man wish he could rid himself with one terrific heave of these pleasures, of these habits of this entirely senseless life. “(p66) As a part of his quest, Siddhartha went through many different situations. He found out more about himself each time he came out from them, and left wiser. After his many years of corruption, he returned to the more holy life. He felt more self worth when he was in a more quieter and reserved life.
He meditated a while before he joined the ferryman in the last phase of his long pursuance. Siddhartha finally felt at peace when he lived with Vasudeva. Vasudeva taught Siddhartha how to listen to the river, and be patient and capable of waiting in life. It was when Siddhartha was with Vasudeva that he encountered the son he had conceived during his days of lust and thus faced his last challenge. His son proved to be incorrigible. He mocked and disobeyed Siddhartha in every way, yet Siddhartha could not help but have unconditional love for him.
He tried so hard to contain his son’s recklessness, but it would not work and his son soon ran away. Finally Siddhartha learned why. “He remembered h ow once, as a youth, he had compelled his father to let him go and join the ascetics, how he had taken leave of him, how he had gone and never returned. Had not his father also suffered the same pain that he was now suffering for his son? Had not his father died long ago, alone, without having seen his son gain? Did he not expect the same fate? Was it not a comedy, a strange and stupid thing, this repetition, this course of events in a fateful circle? (p107) Upon seeking all his intellect, Siddhartha discovered as well as made many valuable interpretations on common, holy, and unholy lives.
He can be regarded as a figure who experienced nearly all the types of situations people sustained. “He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces-hundreds, thousands, which all came and disappeared and et all seemed to be there at the same time, which all continually changed and renewed themselves and which were yet all Siddhartha…
He saw the naked bodies of men and women in the postures and transports of passionate love… He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating and destroying each other and become newly born… ” (p121) Siddhartha not only experienced them but he overcame them so well that he eventually achieved a great peace inside of him. He was an example for people to follow through the rigorous course of self discovery.