Sidhartha Essay, Research Paper

In the novel Siddhartha a young man journeys away from his family on a quest for knowledge. Siddhartha, a young Indian Brahmin grows restless with his life at home in a small Indian village. He leaves with his best friend Govinda to become a samana. Soon Siddhartha becomes aware that the way of the Samana’s does not teach true salvation, and he and Govinda leave to seek Gotama Buddha. When they finally do find the Buddha, Siddhartha decides that he doesn’t want to learn what the Buddha has to teach. He leaves Govinda behind and goes off in search for a life of possessions, and pleasure. He finds this desired life as the business partner to a rich merchant, and with frequent visits to Kamala, the local courtesan. He fathers a son, and becomes distant. He begins to gamble, and soon looses all his money. Realizing his strong dislike for the life he was living, he leaves. He tells no one of his plans, not even Kamala. Siddhartha goes to a river he was once taken across by a kind ferryman, Vasudeva. He stays at this river because of a sound that only he can hear. A sound that symbolizes everything that he has always wanted. He stays at this river until Kamala, on a pilgrimage to see the Buddha, dies, leaving her son with his father Siddhartha. His son shows nothing but resentment and disobedience for his father, and eventually runs away. Siddhartha goes to find him, but instead finds his old friend, Govinda. It is with Govinda that the story ends, and Siddhartha realizes where his life is going.

Point of View

In Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, Hesse uses third person, omniscient, neutral rather than objective because many of Siddhartha’s actions could not be understood if the reader didn’t know what he was thinking.

Several of his actions would be unthinkable, unless you knew his reasons.

“Silently Siddhartha stood in the fierce sun’s rays, filled with pain and thirst, and stood until he no longer felt pain and thirst. Silent he stood in the rain, water dripping from his hair… Silently Siddhartha crouched among the thorns. Blood dripped from his smarting skin, ulcers formed, and Siddhartha remained stiff, motionless, till no more blood flowed, till there was no more pricking, no more smarting.”(14).

Had the novel been written as “a fly on the wall” the reader would not know what Siddhartha was trying to accomplish, and that he is a man who “Has one single goal- to become empty… to experience pure thought. (14)”. A reader without being able to get into Siddhartha’s mind might think that he is just a psychopath who mutilates himself.

When Siddhartha finally found a teacher who had something to offer him, one might have expected him to stay. This man, this Buddha, was truly a holy man to his fingertips. Never had Siddhartha esteemed a man so much, never had he loved a man so much. (28)”. But, again, because the reader has knowledge of Siddhartha’s thought process you know before he leaves that he wasn’t going to stay.

“ Siddhartha did not reply. He was not very curious about the teachings. He did not think they would teach him anything new (28)…As Siddhartha left the grove in which the Buddha, the Perfect One, remained, in which Govinda remained, he felt that he had also left his former life behind him in the grove (37).”

Siddhartha left because, “He realized that he was no longer a youth; he was now a man… He had to leave him; he could not accept his teachings. (37-38)”.

I don’t think that him leaving would make much sense if you didn’t know his reasons for leaving.

When Siddhartha first meets Kamala he resists the urge to fulfill his manly desires. But as time goes on, he eventually gives in to the primitive desire that he had resisted for so long. Now if you only skimmed the book, you might have missed why Siddhartha finally gave in.

“Before evening of that day he reached a large town and he was glad, because he had a desire to be with people…Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was and his heart rejoiced. (50-51)”.

In the beginning siddhartha seemed like a man of great intelligence and wisdom. But how could a man like that, grow into a man who was trapped by “Property, possessions, and riches. (79)”. Lucky for us we know what he was thinking.

“His face was still more clever and intellectual than other people’s, but he rarely laughed, and gradually his face assumed the expressions of discontent, which are so often found among rich people- the expressions of discontent, of sickliness, of displeasure, of idleness, of lovelessness. (78)”.

Had this been written in third person Objective, then the reader would know nothing more than what he does. You wouldn’t know that he was feeling isolated, and lonely, or that he hated himself. He says he doesn’t fit in with the rich people, but he also isn’t a regular person either.

Again why would a man like Siddhartha gamble away all his money? “He derived a passionate pleasure through the gambling away and squandering of wretched money…In no other way could he show ore clearly and mockingly his contempt for the riches, the false deity of businessmen. (79)”.

When I first read this chapter I missed many crucial thoughts and I thought that he just liked gambling because it was fun. But when I was skimming through it, I noticed that he didn’t gamble because it was fun, but that it was an outlet for mocking who he had become

Bibliography

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