Hermann Hesse was born July 2, 1877 in the city of Calw in the north of Swabia. The life of the writer was closely linked to two countries - Germany, where he was born, and the neighboring Switzerland, where he lived for a long time in marriage. Defining influence on the Hesse's character had the area where he was born and where his family lived, as well as his fascination with psychology
Based on the theory of the subconscious and his influence on human life (Jung), the writer created his own concept of "the path to the inner self." His plots featured fantastic, symbolic, and mystical elements, gravitated toward the genre of utopia, and moved the events to the distant exotic or imaginary fantastic countries, places. However, the style has retained its high-intellectual ability.
"Steppenwolf" - a novel that was aimed at depicting the German reality of the 1920s. In it Hermann Hesse searched for ways of forming a human personality. The writer was interested not only in the external world of a sensitive person, but also in the internal conflict, so-called confrontation between the spiritual and the sensual. The novel is based on a complex analysis of the psyche of a man named Harry Haller. He became the embodiment of the marginal outsider, alienated individual. Two people were embodied in the form of "Steppenwolf" at the same time - the one who persecute, and the one who is persecuted. Once, having got to the Magic Theater, which served as a screen on which the state of human souls was projected, the protagonist, as if in a mirror, saw thousands of faces of which his own consisted. Strange things happened in that Magic Theater... Harry's school friend, and now a professor of theology, was shouting gladly in cars traveling nearby. Ignoring the established notions and rules has exceeded all limits. Saxophonist-addict Pablo and his friend Hermine became the true teachers of life for Harry.
The novel continues about five weeks. The form of the story was an autobiography, whose author ("Steppenwolf") left in the abandoned housing. The editor published this manuscript with his own commentary. The plot of the book was a reflection of solitude and despair. The statement was preceded by a note: "For Madmen Only".
Every clash with the real world injured the protagonist's consciousness. Haller was not able to withstand this, so he found salvation in the escape to the world of his own dreams. In the double self-disposition, he saw himself in the image of the wolf - a wild, chaotic man guided by instincts, as the last knight of romanticism. So, the Steppenwolf became an outsider. Harry Galler experienced a lot in his life, but he still had to overcome a considerable path to find spiritual harmony. The final of the novel left the protagonist a certain perspective.
Hermann Hesse is a representative of the "intellectual novel". He did not depict the realities of the World War II disaster. However, the writer became a passionate defender of the personality, which on the way to himself, is supposed to get rid of the masks imposed on her, to become real, in the full sense of this word. At the same time, he, unlike most his contemporaries, was not interested in what divide people, but in this that unite them.
