HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

civilization which [has been] established in order to make [...] life easier, but which
threatens to engulf [men] and reduce [them] to a mere cog in a mechanical system'
(Rose, 82). 83
Aesthetic contrasts and social tensions are polarised in two characters of Der
Steppenwolf, Mozart and Pablo, the former the quintessential classical composer and
the apparent champion of Haller's artistic ideals, the latter an unknown saxophonist
who performs in dance halls, symbol of the consumerist society Haller despises.
Hesse builds upon this contrast throughout the novel; however, this is suddenly
neutralized with a twist at the end of the book, with Pablo and Mozart appearing to
Haller as the same person. This is a crucial moment in the novel whose significance is
open to various interpretations. 84 For Weiner,
The association of the jazz musician and Mozart at the conclusion of the
novel at one point they appear to be identical does not indicate so much an
integration of high and low art within Haller's personality as a disavowal of
the social hierarchies to which these different arts and artists had been
assigned in the bourgeois imagination. (148)
Although the social implications of the association of Mozart with Pablo are
apparent, it is our contention that, to Hesse, these were far less important than the
consequences on an aesthetic level. Through Haller, Hesse portrays the difficulties of
a man approaching a crucial age (fifty) as well as the crisis of an intellectual and a
connoisseur of art who witnesses a full reversal of social and aesthetic values. On the
one hand, the avant-garde of music academies (dodecaphony) seems to produce
music which has no appeal to the masses; on the other, pervasive and ephemeral
83 Commenting on an issue of the Austrian journal 'Musikblatter des Anbruch' dedicated to jazz in 1925,
Fumagalli points out that jazz was perceived as the 'Sprache der Maschinen, des Larms und des Chaos' (118; for
a more extensive citation, see note 87). Field underlines that for Hesse too modern music was symptomatic of
what he defines as '[die] Eroberung der Erde durch die Technik und Industrie' ('Uber Schmetterlinge'; KF, 9):
'[the] surreal dream-war on machines can be regarded as summing up the theme of criticism of contemporary
technological civilization which is woven into the texture of the novel, frequently in conjunction with music. For
modern music, as well as modern machines, can serve to symbolize the alienation of the individual in the
modern world' (Chapter 7, online). Hesse, who was generally critical of the changes brought about by modern
technology was not, as Cornils underscores, 'a cultural conservative and technophobe, but [...] he felt that the
need for certainties and joys was not being satisfied by modern life' (2009, 9).
84 Several scholars point out the common identity of Pablo and Mozart, thus underlining the importance of this
point in the narration: 'Mozart und Pablo [sind eins] auf einer hoheren Stufe' (Karalaschwili, 186); 'Mozart
(really of course Pablo both address Harry as "Monsieur")' (Boulby, 199); 'At this point Haller begins to
realize that the figure which he had taken for Mozart is actually none other than Pablo' (Ziolkowski 1965, 221).
This moment in the novel will also be discussed as an instance of metamorphosis (see Chapter 4, section 5).
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