Siddhartha - What message do you think Hermann Hesse wishes to convey by the way he concludes the novel?

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Man Ju       Y13A

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What message do you think Hermann Hesse wishes to convey by the way he concludes the novel?

    “Siddhartha” is one of the famous books written by Hermann Hesse. It is a novel about Siddhartha, the protagonist, seeking for self-realization, inner knowledge and ultimate reality. Although some people might regard this book as a rather uninteresting book, I believe that it is because they have not study the book profoundly. In my opinion, it is a thoughtful book which can make us understand the meaning of life. In the following essay, I would discuss about what Hermann Hesse wishes to convey by the way he concludes the novel.

    First I would like to talk about Siddhartha’s love for his son. In the chapter “Om”, the story first deals with the sorrow that Siddhartha is suffering from losing his son. Hesse is trying to emphasize that both the love between parent and child and the love between male and female are important to all of us human beings. Not until Siddhartha has his own son did he understand the love towards one’s child. When Siddhartha sees parents with their children, or man with his wife, he knows the feeling they have. But this understanding neither makes his wound heal nor make him forget about the lost of his son. When Siddhartha looks into the river, he sees his reflection staring back. And it reminds him of his father, who must “had suffered the same sorrow that he is now suffering for his own son”. Hesse describes the feeling of losing one’s own son effectively, as if he himself has lost one before. I think Hesse is trying to make teenagers understand the unselfish love they have from their parent. Siddhartha also realised that everything moves in recurring circles, they follow paths which is followed by so many before. Siddhartha is actually a representation of everyone. Everyone might face what Siddhartha has faced.

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    In the same chapter “Om”, Siddhartha finally attains nirvana by listening to the river again. The attainment of nirvana is also the climax of the book. It has always been the ultimate goal for Siddhartha. Siddhartha sees faces from his life in the river. He sees his father, Kamala, Govinda, his son, and many more. He sees the cycle which is recurring all the time. Everything is within the cycle. Every emotion, every feeling experienced by everyone is in the river. And here he awakes; he realizes his own individual insignificance in the faces of eternity and ...

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