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Narcissus knew only too well what a charming golden bird had flown to him. This hermit soon sensed a kindred soul in Goldmund, in spite of their apparent contrasts.
Androgyny and individuation in Demian (Hesse, 1919)
Hesse's novel Demian explores the theme of androgyny and gender ambiguity in depth, using it as a symbol of overcoming the dichotomies that define the ordinary world. Androgyny in the characters is not just a physical or aesthetic characteristic, but represents the fusion of opposites, a condition in which male and female, good and evil, spirit and body coexist without conflict, and it is linked to Jung's theories on the psyche and individuation, the process of integration of the shadow, the dark part of the personality, and of the anima, the feminine principle in men. Emil must fight and create a new world beyond binary for himself.
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Individuation is a process by which one achieves individual wholeness, in the words of Jung “one who was supposed to be”. In this process, interpretation of dreams plays a dominant role, expressing the content of the unconscious, both personal and collective (this is explained by Jung in his Psychology and Alchemy). The individuation is not a linear process, but one with deviations and extremes , which place the individual in contradictory positions and often cause unbearable moral sufferings. Before birth, when the ego has not yet truly formed, the unconscious is one with the mother and its situation is associated by Jung with that of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. From birth, the ego begins its development and separates from the mother to look for another woman, a sexual partner that Jung makes correspond to the archetype of the anima. Hesse showed perfectly in Demian that the essential complication of this relationship is the fact that the archetype of the anima in male psychology, is always initially mixed with the image of the mother (1). Dreams are very important in Demian, more than physical events, they shape Emil's growth and desires. It’s in a “love dream” that emerges the figure of what Emil calls his destiny, which evolves from a portrait of a girl, Beatrice, yet it resembles a boy, Demian, angel and demon, human and beast, and it is described as Sinclair's truest soul. Still cis tho.
Steps of the individuation, which can be connected to specific episodes in the novel, includes:
the assimilation of the shadow (“defeating” Kromer)
the confrontation with the anima (portrait of Beatrice)
the encounter with the archetype of the Wise Old Man (friendship with Pistorius)
For young Sinclair, society presents itself with rigid boundaries, separating the male from the female, good from evil. His childhood is marked by a sharp division between the world of light and the world of darkness, his family corresponds to the bright world, where there is good, righteousness, prayer, etc. In the same way, men and women are two poles that intertwine only to do “mysterious grown-up” things. The father represents authority and rigidity, Sinclair’s relationship with him is not very peaceful and he disregards his father as he grows up and has open conflict with authority such as teachers in school. Meanwhile, the mother is loving but passive, and his sisters, who embody the world of light and are seen as angels, distance themselves as they grow up, finding Emil both amusing and awkward in his teenager body.
In the opening chapter, Sinclair expresses a longing to be part of the world of light, yet he feels unable to fully belong to it. He loses the light when he chooses the darkness. The education that Sinclair receives from his family does not provide him with the tools necessary to face the challenges of adolescence, and this pushes him to look for answers elsewhere. Sinclair’s conviction on the dichotomy of the world is challenged by the mere existence of Demian, who contradicts duality and embraces both light and dark, male and female, young and old. When Emil hears of Abraxas, the novel makes a stronger turn towards the idea of a conjunction of opposites. This idea is very similar to the process of individuation described by Jung.
“What about masculinity? Do you know how much femininity man lacks for completeness? Do you know how much masculinity a woman lacks for completeness? You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men. And thus there are always only men and women. But where are people? You, man, should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself, as you possess it from the beginning.” (2)
Many spiritual traditions consider the androgynous as an expression of the divine. Throughout the Middle Ages, the myth of the androgynous being, seen as a model of human perfection, was present in the secret traditions of mysticism and theosophy in both the East and the West. In Islamic mysticism, divine presence often appears as an "angel-man" with an androgynous form. In Hafiz’s poetry, the beloved is not assigned a specific grammatical gender. Many translations struggle due to Hafiz’s distinctive figurative language and deliberate ambiguity (3). Hafiz’s lyrics on divine love can be reflected in the being of love dreams of Sinclair.
The alchemical operation for the preparation of the philosopher's stone was the union between the masculine and feminine principles.Gnosticism places great importance on the myth of the androgynous being, viewing androgyny as an essential condition for human perfection—a return to a primordial, pre-formal state, free from attributes or polarizations. In particular, the Naassenes, a Gnostic sect, held that the celestial archetype, known as Adamas, was androgynous. Adam, the earthly man, was only a reflection of this divine archetype and was therefore also androgynous. Since all humans originate from Adam, the androgynous is believed to exist within each individual (4).
Most of the characters in Demian are portrayed with an androgynous or ambiguous quality, often blending traits of both youth and old age.
Demian
“I saw Demian’s face, I saw not only that he had not the face of a boy, but that of a man; I saw still more, I thought I saw, or felt, that it was not the face of a man either but something else besides. There seemed to be also something of the woman in his features, and particularly it seemed to me for a moment, not manly or boyish, nor old or young, but somehow or other a thousand years old, not to be measured by time, bearing the stamp of other epochs. Animals could look like that, or trees, or stones” (Demian, chapter 3 , english translation by N. H. Priday, 1923)
Since his first appearance, Sinclair himself is not sure how to describe with precision Demian, this boy surrounded by mystery and rumors, a being who seems to have already overcome the categories imposed by the ordinary world. Recalling animal and mythological images, Demian seems to come from an ancient era.
“Perhaps he was beautiful, perhaps he pleased me, perhaps even he was repugnant— I could not then determine.” (Demian, chapter 3)
These feelings of repulsion and reverence at same time happen again in the dream in chapter 2, where Sinclair suffers by the hand of Kromer and then because of Demian, this time welcoming the torture. However, beyond being merely a mentor or an object of desire, Demian also functions as a projection of Sinclair’s unconscious self, his true self. Then again in this dream in chapter 5:
“Rapture and horror were mixed, the embrace was a sort of divine worship, and yet a crime as well. Too much of the memory of my mother, too much of the memory of Max Demian was contained in the form which embraced me. The embrace seemed repulsive to my sentiment of reverence, yet I felt happy. I often awoke out of this dream with a deep feeling of contentment, often with the fear of death and a tormenting conscience as if I were guilty of a terrible sin.”
Emil experiences deeply ambivalent feelings toward Demian, this time present in the Abraxas incarnation of his dreams, torn between an undeniable attraction and the weight of his upbringing, which has ingrained in him the notion of sin and guilt, very aware of what the terrible sin and crime is (gay gay gay homosexual), to the point of fearing for his life and giving him a reason to feel guilty about himself once more. His perception of his feelings as something forbidden, even criminal, is something present since chapter 1. His longing for Demian is expressed repeatedly throughout the novel, making the queer subtext not very subtle.
Beatrice
Sinclair is immediately attracted and devoted to her. He isn’t really interested in the real girl, he values only her image and what it represents to him. Also worth noting that he likes her in virtue of her boyish features and ephebic beauty.
“She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had a wise, boyish face. She pleased me at once, she belonged to the type that I loved, and she began to work upon my imagination. She was scarcely older than I, but she was more mature; she was elegant and possessed a good figure, already almost a woman, but with a touch of youthful exuberance in her features, which pleased me exceedingly.” (Demian, chapter 4)
Pistorius
Pistorius is a character who also embodies a dual nature: he is both a mature man and a child, a mystic and an unfulfilled dreamer. Hesse uses the word "effeminate” to describe Pistorius' soft features, in contrast to the strength of the upper half of his face:
“....his face was just as I had expected it to be. It was ugly and somewhat uncouth, with the look of a seeker and of an eccentric, obstinate and strong-willed, with a soft and childish mouth. The expression of what was strong and manly lay in the eyes and forehead; on the lower half of the face sat a look of gentleness and immaturity, rather effeminate and showing a lack of self-mastery. The chin indicated a boyish indecision, as if in contradiction with the eyes and forehead. I liked the dark brown eyes, full of pride and hostility.” (Demian, chapter 5)
This description ties in with how Pistorius has an unfulfilled destiny and dream of being a leader of a new religion and how he is the prodigal son, both an adult and a child, still tied to his family and even more, the past and institutionalized religion.
Eva
The culmination of the concept of union of opposites is represented by the character of Eva, Demian's mother. She, almost worshipped as a goddess, is the leader of the circle of the elite, the individuals bearing Cain's mark, which Sinclair joins toward the end.
“There it was, the tall, almost masculine woman’s figure, resembling her son, with traits of motherliness, traits which denoted severity, and deep passion, beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, demon and mother, destiny and mistress. [...] Her voice and her words were like those of her son, and yet quite different. Everything was more mature, warmer, more assured.” (Demian, chapter 7)
Demian is a feminine boy, and Eva is a masculine woman: mirrors of each other. In Eva, all opposites come together, not in conflict but in harmony. She represents the final stage of Sinclair’s journey, the embodiment of Abraxas. At the same time, she reflects both his idealized mother figure and his hidden desires. Sinclair’s love for Eva is not just about maternal affection. It is a continuation of his feelings for Demian, but now expressed in a new way that fits societal norms. Unlike his hesitant attraction to Demian, his feelings for Eva are open and intense, showing that she represents both acceptance and fulfillment of something he struggled with before. Her appearance and demeanor is very similar to her son, except she is a version of Demian that Emil is allowed to love, because she is a woman and not a man. In this sense, she serves as an outlet for the emotions he has repressed for years. It is difficult to separate the characters of Demian and Eva, because they, as I said, are a mirror of each other. Emil's feelings towards both of them are intertwined, nonetheless valid on their own. I think Emil loves both of them, but the fact that they are likely projections of Emil's mind complicates everything.
Eva is the end of Sinclair's journey, when he first meets her he feels at home, she is what he was looking for. Demian's home— Eva’s home is a garden, a new Eden in which Sinclair can love and be loved for who he really is, in opposition to his family home. Her name, Eva, also carries symbolic weight, as it is the name of the first woman, who sinned against God and the mother of Cain and Abel, this all circles back to the first encounter with Demian and the mark of Cain. Her eternally youthful appearance reminds me of another very important mother figure, the Pietà Vaticana by Michelangelo. In the Pietà, Mary appears much younger than one might expect for a woman who has lost a 33-year-old son.
“But just as Max in years past had made on no one the impression of being a mere boy, so his mother did not look like the mother of a grown-up son, so young and sweet was the breath of her face and hair, so smooth her golden skin, so blossoming her mouth.” (Demian, chapter 7)
Michelangelo’s focus was symbolic: he depicted Mary as young, as she was when she conceived Jesus, suggesting that "chastity, holiness, and incorruption preserve youth" (5). This iconography of the Pietà, or Vesperbild, became popular in Central Europe during the 14th century, with small sculptures showing the Virgin seated, holding the body of Christ after his death on Good Friday. During the Middle Ages, Mary was considered not only as the mother of Christ but also as his bride and as a symbol of the Church. In a similar way, Eva is not just Demian’s mother, (according to students rumors in chapter 3, her lover, too) but the mother of mankind, an idea and a spiritual figure. Eva, a woman that Sinclair calls mother, lover, whore and Abraxas. Demian also has some connotations of a Christ-like figure, he embodies the Self, the archetype of psychic totality, according to Jung.
She’s tender, loving, but also scary and confusing: the hallucination/vision of the gigantic Eva on the battlefield causes destruction, the mother who brings birth also brings death, like the hindu goddess Kali, worshipped as the mother of the universe, associated with death and destruction.
"Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” (6)
This hermetic principle of polarity, expressed in “The Kybalion”, perfectly encapsulates the gender of characters in Demian.
(1) C. G. Jung. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. 1968.
(2) C.G. Jung. The Red Book. 2009
(3) D. Ingenito. Tradurre Ḥāfeẓ: Quattro Divān Attuali. Oriente Moderno.2009.
(4) https://www.rigenerazionevola.it/larchetipo-androgino/
(5) Giorgio Vasari. Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori. 1550-1567.
(6) The Kybalion. 1908 by "Three Initiates" (William Walker Atkinson)
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also isnt it silly. sinclair harbours all this admiration for demian because demian appears to him so self-certain and so superior but demian is also in turn wholly infatuated with this seemingly clueless bird. he is entirely in awe and it’s indisputable. demian aids sinclair in discovering his own soul but sinclair really does the same for demian as well
in my opinion, demian by hermann hesse can be read both as a story about descending further and further into delusion (maybe even psychosis) and embracing unreality, while on another level being a largely allegorical coming of age narrative. the popular opinion seems to lean very heavily towards the latter alone, even though i would argue entertaining the former makes the book even more interesting through adding another layer of complexity.
the common reading of it as a journey of self-discovery is obviously very meaningful, especially in the deconstruction of christian morality and black-and-white-thinking it offers, but in all its themes of learning to embrace your identity as a separate and basically superior type of human being with mystic capabilities, seeing signs everywhere and 'manifesting' your future, i also recognise a lot of very dangerous tendencies that remind me of my younger self when my grasp on reality was definitely strenuous, and those lines of thinking would actually lead me further away from instead of towards myself, making me feel like i was disintegrating. it reads like a kind of ultimate submission to magical thinking and paranoia (which stands in contrast to the idea of abraxas which counteracts sinclair's ocd tendencies and can be seen as the breakthrough leading him on a healing journey away from religious trauma, something that is supposed to free him of the barriers his distorted thinking is imposing upon his mind), even reminds me of cult indoctrinations and the first steps of recruitment into a lot of far-right movements, which well-meaning esoterics are unfortunately often exceptionally susceptible to. reading the book again was a lot of "oh this was so important for me to hear as a young teenager" and "oh this was definitely Not healthy for me to read back then" at the same time, in a way bringing it back to the duality (and dissolution of said duality) of it all.
that's why there is this question of: do you interpret it as mainly allegorical, as a very jungian tale of awakening & integration of the shadow in which archetypes come to life to guide a troubled psyche searching for purpose, and in which nothing is to be taken at face value, but for its symbolic meaning? or do you read it as a story about mental health and someone with a precarious relationship to reality? i guess there is also a third option of interpreting it as an actually subtly supernatural tale. and obviously it doesn't have to be one or the other at all, and is in fact much more interesting when it isn't! i just feel like that very psychological and certainly more distressing perspective rarely ever gets talked about in comparison to other interpretations, even though i think it has just as much to contribute.
