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

with music, which would eventually become his profession. Sinclair's friendship
with Demian dates back to their childhood, a period when the latter helps Sinclair
free himself from the nasty yoke of a schoolmate. The protagonist of Roflhalde,
Veraguth, often recalls his 'Knabenzeit' in his attempt to turn his life around and,
despite being an adult, feels that the end of his marriage marks the end of his youth,
namely the period when a man has not yet found his own path in life. 13 Klingsor
links his artistic skills to his childhood and the creative power of memory and
dreams:
dann aber, das fiihle ich, werde ich den Weg nach innen gehen und noch
einmal, wie ich es als junger Kerl eine Weile tat, ganz aus der Erinnerung und
Phantasie malen, Gedichte machen und Traume spinnen. (SW 8, 327)
Hesse, as the narrator of Kurgast, comes to terms with the nuisances caused by
a noisy Dutch guest next door by imagining him as a child: 'als es mir endlich
gelungen war, ihn zum kleinen Knaben zuriickzuverwandeln, da gewann der Hals
[des Hollanders] zum erstenmal meine Teilnahme. Auf dem sanften Wege des
Mitleids eroberte er mein Herz' (SW 11, 88).
Memory awakens Hesse's characters to unresolved aspects of their childhood.
In Hermann Lauscher, Der Steppenwolf, and Narzifl und Goldmund, memories spring
from an unconscious buried past and trigger a state of inner turmoil in the main
characters. Goldmund is suddenly reminded by Narzifi 'dass er seine Kindheit
vergessen hat und seine Mutter' (SW 4, 310). The narrator in Hermann Lauscher feels
that all the emotions and impulses he has repressed in his life resurface as childhood
memories which, like a storm, wipe out the images of harmony and beauty layered
in his adult memory.
Da begann ich zu fuhlen, dafi die Stunde eines lang verschobenen
Kampfes unerbittlich gekommen war, dass alles Unterdruckte, an
Ketten Gelegte, Halbgebandigte, in mir erbittert und drohend an den
Fesseln zerrte. Alle wichtigen Augenblicke meines Lebens, in denen ich
meiner Bestimmung einen neuen, engeren Kreis gezogen, in denen ich
dem Gefiihl des Ewigen, dem naiven Instinkt, dem eingeborenen,
unbewussten Leben ein Feld entzogen hatte, traten in voller,
13 The end of Veraguth's marriage comes as a turning point in the novel, as it symbolizes the artist's failure at
bridging the gap between his artistic needs and his settled, bourgeois lifestyle.
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