This blog post examines Hermann Hesse’s meaning of maturity and youth through the reason Abraxas, appearing in ‘Demian’, is presented as an entity simultaneously embodying good and evil, light and darkness. Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) is a German-Swiss author whose name is more familiar in Korea than any other foreign writer. His works were introduced to Korea early on and remain among...
Why does the boundary between good and evil constantly shift in ‘Demian’?
This blog post examines how ‘Demian’ portrays good and evil not as fixed moralities but as tensions within the human psyche, and why that boundary inevitably fluctuates, through the work’s symbols and the characters’ development. ‘Demian’ was written in 1916 during World War I and published in 1919, immediately after the war ended. Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), already a renowned...
What is the danger of materialism that Hermann Hesse warned about, and what does it mean for us today?
Through Demian, Hermann Hesse warned that materialism leads to the loss of one’s self and drives society toward war and chaos. His message remains relevant today, and we must seek the path to finding our true selves through it. While appreciating Hermann Hesse’s Demian, what struck me was not merely that this work was written against the backdrop of the great catastrophe of...