Steppenwolf: A Quest for Happiness Anonymous College

Within his fiction, German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse investigates a surprising, Eastern view on people’s perception of themselves. While traditionally Westerners describe each person with such definite characteristics as their names, appearances, and main traits, Hesse argues that this idea is both incorrect and even hurtful at times. The main character of his famous novel Steppenwolf, Harry Haller, discovers multiple contradictory personalities within himself. Only after understanding and accepting these numerous sides of himself does Harry become free and happy. In his novel, Hesse encourages his readers to abandon ages-old western idea of a strictly defined personality, learn to laugh, become loving to themselves and their fellow-humans, and search for liberation in the depths of their own unforeseen selfs.

One of the main points Hesse raises is the failure of the Western world to apprehend the complexity of human personality. Harry suffers because he cannot accept the fact that a part of himself defies the expectations of his immediate social surrounding. At times Harry sees himself as an animal, a beast of the steppes, “He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of...